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WILEY & PUTNAM'S 

n 

LIBRARY OF 

CHOICE READING 



HOCHELAGA; 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD 

PART I. 



Lately Published 

IN- 

WILEY & PUTNAM'S 

"LIBRARY OF CHOICE READING," 

2 vols., IGmo., or 1 vol. in cloth. 

THE CRESCENT AND THE CROSS; 

OR, 

ROMANCE AND REALITIES OF EASTERN TRAVEL. 

BY ELIOT WARBURTON, ESQ. 



CRITICAL OPINIOKS ON THIS WORK. 

" Nothing but the already overdone topics prevented Mr. Warburton's 
Eastern sketches from rivalling Eothen in variety: in the mixture of story 
with anecdote, information, and expression, it perhaps surpasses it. Innu- 
merable passages of force, vivacity, or humor, are to be found in the vo- 
lumes." — Spectator. 

" This delightfdl work is, from first to last, a splendid panorama of 
Eastern Scenery, 'va the full blaze of its magnificence. The crowning 
merit of the book is, that it is evidently the production of a gentleman and 
a man of the world, who has lived in the best society, and been an atten- 
tive observer of the scenes and characters v/hich have passed before him 
during his restless and joyous existence. To a keen sense of the ludicrous, 
lie joins a pov/er of sketching and grouping v/hich are happily demon- 
strated." — Morning Post. 

" Mr. Warburton has fulfilled the promise of his title-page. The ' Re- 
alities' of ' Eastern Travel' are described v/ith a vividness which invests 
them with deep and abiding interest; while the 'Romantic' adventures 
which the enterprising tourist met v/ith in his course are narrated with a 
spirit which shows hov>?- much he enjoyed these reliefs from the ennui of 
every-day ]ife."— Globe. 

" The Author has been careful to combine with his own observation 
such information as he could glean from other sources ; and his volumes 
contain a compilation of much that is useful, with original remarks of his 
own on Oriental life and manners. He possesses poetic feeling, which as- 
sociates easily with scenery and manners." — Athenaeum. 

" This is an account of a tour in the Levant, including Egypt, Palestine, 
Syria, Constantinople, and Greece. The book is remarkable for the color- 
ing power, and the play of fancy with which its descriptions are enlivened. 
The writing is of a kind that indicates abilities likely to command success 
in the higher departments of literature. Almost every page teems with 
good feeling ; and although that ' catholic heartedness,' for which the 
Author takes credit, permits him to view Mahometan doctrines and usages 
with a little too much of indifferentism, yet, arriving in Palestine, he at 
once gives in his adherence to the ' religion of the place' with all the zeal 



ADVERTISEMENT. 



of a pious Christian. The book, independently of its value as an original 
narrative, comprises much ussful and interesting information." — Quarterly 
Review. 

" Mr. Warburton sees w^ith the strong, clear vision vs^ith which Heaven 
has endowed him, but with this there are always blended recollections of 
the past, and something — though dashed in unconsciously — of poetic feel- 
ing He brings to his work of observation an accomplished mind, and 
well-trained and healthful faculties. We are proud to claim him a^ a 
countryman, and are content that his book shall go all the world over, that 
other countries may derive a just impression of our national character." — 
Britannia. 

" Mr. Warburton's book is very lively, and is most agreeablv written." — 
Examiner. 

" A lively description of impressions made upon a cultivated mind, dur- 
ing a rapid journey over countries that never cease to interest. The 
writer carried with him the intelligence and manners of a gentleman — the 
first a key to the acquisition of knowledge, and the last a means of obtain- 
ing access to the best sources of information." — Literary Gazette. 

" We know no volumes furnishing purer entertainment, or better calcu- 
lated to raise up vast ideas of past glories, and the present aspects of the 
people and lands of the most attractive region of the world." — Court 
Journal. 

" Of recent books of Eastern Travel, Mr. Warburton's is by far the best. 
He writes like a poet and an artist, and there is a general feeling of bon- 
hommie in everything he says, that makes his work truly delightful." — 
Weekly Chronicle. 

" This is one of the most interesting and admirable publications of the 
day. The accomplished tourist presents us with graphic and life-like de- 
scriptions of the scenes and personages he has witnessed. His narrative is 
written in the most elegant and graphic style, and his reflections evince 
not only taste and genius, but v»"ell-informed judgment." — Chester Courant. 

" We could not recommend a better book as a travelling companion than 
Mr. Warburton's. It is by far the most picturesque production of its class 
that we have for a long time seen. Admirably written as is the work, and 
eminently graphic as are its descriptions, it possesses a yet more exalted 
merit in the biblical and philosophical illustrations of the writer." — United 
Service Magazine. 

" Mr. Warburton possesses rapidity and brilliancy of thought, and feli- 
city of imagery. But he has qualities even rarer yet — a manliness of 
thought and expression, a firm adherence to whatever is high-souled and 
honorable, without one particle of clap-trap sentiment. Let his theme be 
a great one, and for it alone has he ears and eyes ; and the higher and more 
poetic the subject, the more elegant and spirit-stirring are his descriptions." 
— Dublin University Magazi?ie. 

" There is a fine poetical imagination, tempered by a well trained intel- 
ligence. Thought, feeling, and passion, manifest themselves in every 
page " — iJinsworth's Magazine. 



HOCHELAGA; 



?^fcRC,ANTR.| i.ieRARY 1 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD 



EDITED BY 



ELIOT WARBURTON, E SQ/u-t.-BartUu^v^.,. 

AUTHOR, OF 



'THE ORESCENT AND THE CROSS." 



IN TWO PARTS. 



PART. I. 



nV 



NEW YORK: 
WILEY & PUTNAM, 16] BROADWAY 



1846. 




R. Ckaiqhead's Power Prea^, 
112 Fulton Street. 






cs. 



EDITOR'S PREFACE. 



Civilisation in its progress has ever followed the direction 
of light; it arose far Eastward; gradually it shone over 
Greece, then Rome; it culminates over Western Europe; 
and even now its morning light is upon America, while the 
land it first enlightened is sinking into darkness. 

There seems to have been always an instinct in the minds 
of thoughtful men, that there was a great continent westward ; 
a New World, ready to receive the overflow of the burden of 
humanity that pressed upon the Old. " Atlantis " long ago 
expressed a consciousness of such a want, and a belief that it 
would be supphed. Strange to say, this prophetic feeling 
was responded to by the inhabitants of the unknown world : 
among the wild and stern Mic-Macs of the North, and the 
refined and gentle Yncas of the South, a presentiment of their 
coming fate was felt. They believed that a powerful race of 
men were to come " from the rising sun," to conquer and pos- 
sess their lands. 

The theories of old Greece and Roman Spain became 
stories ; stories became tradition ; tradition became faith, 
and Columbus assumed his mission : in him the old " Wester- 
ing " instinct amounted to an inspiration ; he burst his way 
through the Unknown to the known ; he revealed to us a 
world rich in all that we required, a world abounding in ca- 
pabilities, deficient only in mankind. 



Vlll EDITOR S PREFACE. 



Then the necessity of the Old World found relief ; Europe 
rushed forth to colonize — each nation according to its cha- 
racter — leaving for ever the stamp of that character impressed 
upon its colony- Spaniards, led to the New World by the lust 
of gold, soon sacrificed ilieir America to slavery. Englishmen, 
led thither by the love of liberty, consecrated their new soil 
to Freedom. England in the new w^orld was England 
still ; striving, earnest, honest, and successful. A mistake in 
policy changed Englishmen into Yankees, but British blood, 
and, for the most part, British principles, remained. 

These we bequeathed to our revolted colony : retiring 
Northward, w^e were content to rest our Western Empire on 
the banks of the St. Lawrence, in the modern Canada, — the 
ancient Hochelaga. 

It is not only where our banners wave, where our laws pro- 
tect, where our national faith assures, that we are to look for 
" England in the New World." In the minds of our brethren 
of the United States, in their institutions, in their actions, in 
their motives — there — everywhere that our language is spoken 
— we can trace our own. 

And such is the object of this work : its Author speaks of 
Canada with almost affection — of the United States with 
cordiality — but his chief interest throughout, is the relation 
that these countries bear to his own ; the influence that the 
latter exercises upon them. 

Let not the reader suppose, however, that these volumes 
contain mere political essays ; the Author has rightly judged 
that the picture of a people is best given by traits of daily life, 
of the humor, the poetry, and the passioS§»that characterize 
them. 

It is not the province of an Editor to criticize, it is not his 
privilege to praise, but he may be generously excused for say 



editor's preface. IX 



ing a few words in behalf of an adopted work, that has had 
none of the advantages of paternal care. 

The Author is far away, in the lands of which these vol- 
umes treat ; but every page will tell that his heart is still at 
home. The name of England, her prosperity, her character 
for honor and righteous dealing, are dearer to the lonely tra- 
veller than his own. Here, in the calm shelter of our English 
homes, this lover-like feeling may seem dormant ; there is 
nothing to strike the fire from the flint : but, in other lands, 
among the jealous strictures of rival nations, the feeling is 
ever predominant: let it be pardoned to the Author, if it 
should seem too prominent. His nationality has at least never 
betrayed him into an ungenerous remark upon Americans ; he 
acknowledges their virtues, he rejoices in their prosperity, he 
confesses their power ; but he fearlessly laughs at their foi- 
bles, and denounces their crimes. 

One word more, and the Editor leaves Hochelaga to be 
judged on its own merits. This work — whatever else it may 
be — is work : it contains no hastily-written, crude impres- 
sions, but the deeply-tested convictions of an earnestly-inquir- 
ing mind. The first few chapters may not seem to argue 
this ; but in books, as in conversations, our national habits of 
reserve seem to exercise their influence : on first introduction 
to the reader, a light and general tone will generally be found 
in English works, that only deepens into earnestness and con- 
fidence as we proceed ; we create, or hope to create, sympa- 
thies, and on these we lean more confidently as we trust that 
they increase. 

The Editor would fain be permitted one word of apology 
for the office he has undertaken. He is far from presuming 
on the kind reception he has gratefully experienced from the 
public, by supposing that his name would be a recommenda- 



EDITOR'S PREFACE. 



tion to these volumes. But it seemed essential that an anony- 
mous work, so full of assertions and statements, should have 
some name, however humble, to be responsible for their tone 
and truth. That responsibility the Editor undertook for his 
friend with confidence, before he had perused his pages ; he 
now maintains it with pride. 

In a w^ord — as an humble friend may be the means of intro- 
ducing an eminent stranger to society, the Editor takes the 
liberty of presenting to the public a work far worthier than 
his own. E. W. 



105, Piccadilly, London, 
July, 1846. 



AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 



I SHALL not here enter into a list of apologetic reasons for 
publishing the following pages. Although I feel very strongly 
the necessity of laying them before my own mind, there is 
not the slightest use in presenting them to the reader. That 
I have published, is the only thing which can possibly con- 
cern him, and that probably in the minutest degree. 

No one ever yet toiled through a dull work in considera- 
tion of the appeals or entreaties of an unknown author. It 
suffices that the book is there ; if it be liked, no apologies are 
due — if not, a volume of them would not make it more enter- 
taining and instructive. 

The visits to North America — ^the subject of this book — 
extended over somewhat less than two years. I have adopted 
the form of a continuous journey, to give a sort of regularity 
to very disjointed matter. Several of the places mentioned, 
I have visited on various occasions ; at a few, chiefly in Canada, 
I remained stationary for some time. 

For this magnificent country I retain a feeling of regard and 
interest inferior only to that for England. I pray that I may 
not live to see the time, when another flag replaces the Red 
Cross of St. George upon the citadel of Quebec. 

Some ten years ago, in a season of mutual misunderstanding, 
there were not a few in England and in Canada who wished 
to sever the connecting tie. Since then, a generous but deter- 



xii author's preface. 



mined policy, on the one hand, and a wholesome re-action on 
the other, have produced a salutary change ; all are now too 
much alive to their real interests to entertain the thought. To 
make the probabilities of separation even a subject of discussion, 
is attended with much mischief: it unsettles men's minds, ren- 
ders Englishmen chary of investing their capital in Canada, 
and encourages the ambitious views of our annexing neighbors. 
It is vain to think of it : the British Government have expended 
of late years, very large simis in improving the communica- 
tions, and strengthening the military defences of the country. 
They have announced their determination to incur the hazards 
of war before sacrificing their claim to a remote dependency 
of this magnificent province. Rather than surrender the 
North American portion of her empire, England will risk her 
existence as a nation. A vast majority of her subjects in this 
country* are ready to stand by her to the last. 

It is my earnest wish to assist, as far as my feeble voice can 
be heard, in giving our English people at home a more inti- 
mate knowledge of our " England in the New World ;" of its 
climate and capabilities ; of the condition of its inhabitants ; 
of their social habits and amusements. Numbers of books 
have been already written on this country ;* mine is not to 
supply any want, but simply as one more — as further testimony 
to the interest of the subject. 

With regard to the United States, I have done my utmost to 
attain a correct view of their general progress and the state 
of their people. Many of my observations may, perhaps, be 
distasteful to an American reader ; but this is a penalty which 
every stranger who ventures an honest opinion must incur. 
I heard a very intelligent, well-informed man, connected 

* Canada.— Ed, 



XIU 

with a periodical of considerable reputation at New York, 
assert that all English writers are bought up by the Aris- 
tocracy, and, therefore, that they speak disparagingly of 
America and her institutions. If my friend should ever hap- 
pen to peruse these volumes, he will scarcely accuse the Aris- 
tocracy of having invested much capital in suborning me. 

I was astonished at the general prosperity of the Americans, 
their industry and skill, the vast resources of their country, 
and their advance in all the useful arts of life. In most, if not 
all, of these, they stand first among the nations of the earth. 
I will not say they inspired me with affection or admiration, 
but they did inspire me with wonder. Their Institutions 
appear excellently well adapted to their situation and charac- 
ter at present, in many essential respects ; but I consider them 
to be inapplicable and odious to other countries, or even to the 
probable future condition of their own. 

They possess many great virtues, but not generally those 
which attract. Their well-directed reason may be far better 
than mere generous impulse ; but it does not touch the heart. 
Whatever esteem the traveller may entertain, he will scarcely 
bear away with him much warmth of feeling towards them as 
a people. 

On many subjects I have obtained information from other 
works, which it would be tedious to enumerate here. Some 
American publications on Oregon have been of much assist- 
ance to me ; but I chiefly speak from w^hat I learned from 
people who had been resident in the country. 

I am now a great distance from England. This manuscript 
is committed to a kind and gifted friend, who will direct its 
publication. For your sake and mine, kind reader, would 
that a portion of that friend's genius could be infused into its 
pages ! 



CONTENTS OF PART 1 



PAGE 

CHAPTER I. 

THE VOYAGE . . . 1 

CHAPTER n. 

NEWFOUNDLAND— THE ST. LAWRENCE 11 

CHAPTER HI. 

QUEBEC HISTORICAL SKETCH OF CANADA ..... 22 

CHAPTER IV. 

QUEBEC— AUTUMN 45 

CHAPTER V. 

QUEBEC WINTER 64 

CHAPTER VI. 

MOOSE-HUNTING .......... 74 

CHAPTER VII. 

THE CONVENT — THE MADHOUSE . . ... 89 

CHAPTER VIII. 

FIRE 99 

CHAPTER IX. 

MONTREAL . . . . . . . .110 

CHAPTER X. 

KINGSTON — LAKE ONTARIO .117 

CHAPTER XI. 

TORONTO NIAGARA ........ 124 

CHAPTER XII. 

GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA — RESOURCES TRADE ... 135 

CHAPTER XIII. 

RELIGION EDUCATION THE PRESS ...... 147 

CHAPTER XIV. 

MANNERS— POUTICr. — DEFENCE 162 



HOCHELAGA; 



OR, 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD 



.CHAPTER I. ;,-/ 

The Voyage 

About the middle of July, 1844, 1 found myself suddenly obliged 
to embark from Chatham, for Canada, on board an uncomfortable 
ship, a very unwilling passenger. In a middle aged man, of quite 
bachelor habits, such a voyage to a strange country, at a few hours' 
notice, was a most disagreeable necessity. I soon, however, 
made up my mind and my packages, and before the afternoon 
was much advanced, started from London. 

It was dark when I arrived at Chatham, and went on board ; 
there was a whistling wind and a drizzling rain ; the decks, between 
the heaps of luggage and merchandize, were wet, dirty, and slip- 
pery, reflecting dismally the light of the consumptive looking 
lamps, cai'ried about by the condemned spirits of this floating 
purgatory. There was evidently a great number of passengers 
on board, of all sorts and conditions of men and women. Perched 
on a pile of baggage, were a number of soldiers going out to join 
their regiments in Canada, wit^|jj^ir hard-favored wives, poorly 
and insufficiently clad : but, dl^te the coarse and travel- worn 
dress and rude appearance of these poor women, I saw during the 

PART I. 2 



HOCHELAGA; OR, 



voyage many traits in theni of good and tender feeling : the 
anxious care of their little ones, rearing them so fondly to their 
doom of poverty and toil ; their kindness to each other, sharing 
their scanty covering and scantier meals. The wretched can feel 
for the wretched, the poor are rich in heart, to give. 

My cabin had lately been repaired, and looked very miserable ; 
the seams of the deck were filled with new pitch, which stuck 
pertinaciously to my boots. The den had evidently just been 
washed, and was still damp enough to charm a hydropathist ; the 
port-hole window was open to air it. Threats, bribes, and 
entreaties, in course of time procured me the necessary portions 
of my luggage ; soon after, half undressed, and wholly wretched, 
I crept into my berth ; and, being too wise to remain awake under 
such very unpleasant circumstances, I in a few minutes adopted 
the alternative. 

The crowing of an early rising cock awoke me next morning. 
From that time there was no hope of sleep ; it seemed the signal 
to let Bedlam loose. Every conceivable description of clatter 
followed ; scouring decks, lugging boxes, rattling chains, sailors 
swearing, and soldiers quarrelling. 

It was scarcely dawn when I looked out of my little window ; 
through the grey twiliglit the shadowy forms of steeples and 
houses by degrees became distinct and solid. The sun, not to 
take us by surprise with his pleasant visit, reddened up the gilt 
weathercock of the church spire, then reflected himself back 
cheerfully from the windows, and, at length, with lavish hand, 
spread bright young morning over the country around. In a lit- 
tle time a soft breeze carried away the early mist in the direction 
we had to travel. 

The main cabin was in the same damp, uncomfortable state as 
our sleeping apartments ; in the corners, boxes and baskets con- 
taining our sea stock were heaped up in such height and breadth 
as to make the strait between them and the table so narrow that 
there was barely room for me to squeeze my portly person 
through. An irregular sort of breakfast was on the table ; round 
it were seated the greater number of the cabin passengers, all 
evidently examining each othSBwith great attention, between the 
mouthfuls of toast and butter, setting down in their minds the 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 



result of their scrutiny, in prejudices for and against their neigh- 
bors. 

There was a tall, thin, good-looking clergyman, who, having 
been ordained in England, was going to enter on his duties in 
Canada ; and a very shrewd-faced Irish attorney for Newfound- 
land, where we were to touch on the way. This part of the 
cargo was, however, neutralized by an honest, openhearted 
merchant and his good humored wife, from the same country, 
and with the same destination. Two gentlemen for Quebec ; a 
Jew for Montreal, whose face was like the reflection of a handsome 
countenance in a convex mirror ; a thoughtful-looking, well-bred 
captain ; a rattling, mischievous youth, his lieutenant ; a quiet, 
handsome young ensign ; and a Scotch doctor, belonging to the 
detachment of soldiers ; these, with a middle-aged widow and her 
only child, a sickly boy of ten or twelve years of age, both in 
deepest mourning, formed the remainder of the party. The story 
of this family was a sad one. The lady was a Canadian, and had 
married a civil oflicer in her own country. After some years, 
he was unfortunately promoted to a valuable appointment in 
China ; he immediately set out for the place of his new employ- 
ment, and, on his arrival, wrote for his wife and child. They 
sailed, full of hope and happiness, thinking nothing of their 
voyage half round the world for the sake of the fond and anxious 
one who awaited them at its end. Nearly six months passed 
before their arrival. The march of the deadly pestilence was not 
so slow ; they found but a new made grave where they expected 
a happy home^ so the widow and orphan turned wearily to seek 
again the land of their birth, thousands of miles away. 

This pale boy was all in all to her. Hers was a love of faith 
and hope ; she never doubted that in fulness of time he would 
grow to be great and good, and pay her back the debt of tender- 
ness and care. She was the only person who did not see that the 
shadow of death was upon him. 

I speedily became acquainted with everybody on board. Per- 
haps it was owing to my sleek and comfortable appearance that 
they concluded I was the fittes^erson to undertake the caterer's 
department for the cabin ; it WRied out that I had one qualifica- 
tion for the duty in which all the rest were deficient — that of being 



HOCHELAGA; OR, 



weak enough to take it. Every one knows the weight of obloquy 
which falls upon the man in office when there is no fat on the 
sirloin, or the legs of the fowl have the flavor and consistency of 
guitar strings. It is impossible to divest people of the idea that, 
by some inexplicable ingenuity, and for some inscrutable object 
of his own, he has caused these imperfections on purpose. 

My prime minister was a black cook ; my kingdom, animal 
and vegetable; my subjects three or four gaunt sheep in the 
launch, and, under the forecastle, a couple of pigs, whose appear- 
ance and habits of living justified our Israelitish friend's anxiety 
that there should be more solidity than usual in the side dishes 
when a chine of pork was at the head of the table. 

On the poop were several rows of coops, a sort of charitable 
institution for superannuated geese and ducks, and, in the list of sea 
stock furnished by the eminent outfitter in the west-end, was the 
item, six dozen chickens. These were represented by a grave 
assemblage of patriarchal cocks and venerable hens ; among the 
former I speedily recognized, by his voice, the bird whose voice 
in the morning, like fire to a train, had set going the din so fatal 
to my slumbers. I promptly ordered his execution ; he, however, 
amply revenged himself on those who tried to eat him the next 
day. 

While I was thus entering on my official duties, the crew were 
not neglectful of their part of the business. The sails were 
shaken out, the anchor weighed, and the voyage commenced by 
running aboard of a merchant ship moored a little ahead of us. 
On this occasion I made a philological observation, which subse- 
quent experience has only tended to strengthen — that the language 
used by sailors, under difficulties, is more worthy of imitation for 
terseness and vigor than for iis elegance and pl-opriety. 

With a fair and gentle breeze we floated lazily down the river; 
the principal objects of interest which we passed were the splen- 
did ships of war, now lying dismasted and harmless, but ready, 
when the Lords of the Admiralty play their Frankenstein and 
breathe on them the breath of life, for any mission of destruction. 

We pass Sheerness, roll in the Downs, enter the Channel, think 
and say everything that people nitially think and say on leaving 
England, and go to bed. 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 



The description of one day in the voyage suits for all. A 
seven o'clock breakfast opened the proceedings ; at eight, a very 
small trumpeter sounded for the soldiers' parade ; a couple of 
hours' vigorous walking on the deck preceded luncheon ; then, as 
twelve approached, we all assembled on the poop, while the mas- 
ter took his observations ; then great coats and cloaks turned the 
coops into sofas, and reading and sunshine kept us quiet till 
three, when dinner — the hour of my trial, and the delight of 
grumblers — interrupted our literary pursuits. We established a 
community of books ; and, before the voyage was half over, 
Robinson Crusoe and Paul and Virginia were as much thumbed 
as if they had been fashionable novels in a circulating library. 

The next re-union was of a select few on the forecastle, with 
cigars and pipes, a chat with the sailors, and a sharp look out for 
porpoise, whale, or strange ship, or any other monster of the deep. 
Our friend, the noisy lieutenant, used always to appear in the 
latter character at that period of the day. He had a strong nau- 
tical inclination, which he indulged by arraying himself in a suit 
of sailor's garments which would have been invaluable to Mr. T. 
P. Cooke : a red flannel shirt, trousers and jacket of blue pilot 
cloth, an oilskin hat, with a clay pipe stuck in the band ; nor was 
a clasp knife tied around his waist with a lanyard, forgotten, to 
complete his costume. Some of the others played at shuffle- 
board, fenced, wrestled, or exercised themselves laboriously on 
gymnastic poles. 

It is soon time for tea, the widow doing the honors ; after that, 
the hot water and lemons, with little bright glass bottles, and a 
snappish argument between the Irish attorney and the Montreal 
Jew ; a quiet talk with the clergyman and the captain, a rubber 
of whist, a chess Doard, and words of courtesy and kindness to 
the widow. 

Sometimes when the evening was very fine, we went on deck, 
and listened to wonderful narratives by the soldiers and sailors, 
and quaint ditties with overgrown choruses. One of the top-men 
had a splendid voice ; he was the heau ideal of an English sea- 
man, active, good tempered, handsome, and full of fun : — a fa- 
vorite with all. 

There was among the passengers a family of three brothers 



HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



and a sister, from the north of Ireland, about to settle in Canada ; 
they were hardy, serious, respectable people, having some little 
capital in money and goods, with their own strong arms and ho- 
nest hearts to depend upon ; the class of people of all others the 
most useful in a colony. They, too, used to sing for us at times ; 
they knew but one kind of music, and that best suited to their 
powerful, but harsh and untrained voices. Many a cunning 
stage arrangement might have failed to give the deep effect which 
lay in their solemn, stern, Presbyterian hymns. 

Then came another pipe, seasoned with discussion on what 
passed for events in the day, a little moralizing, and always a rigid 
examination of the conduct of that constant offender, the weather, 
and then we slept. 

One night, when we were off the coast of Ireland, the wind 
freshened up, and the clouds thickened ominously. The next 
morning dawned upon a gale of wind ; the sea had risen a good 
deal, and the ship rolled sufficiently to account for the very small 
party at breakfast. The storm was against us, blowing with in- 
creasing violence that day and night, and the next day. Nearly 
all the passengers were sick, and the sailors were doing their 
work in a quiet, steady way, that showed they were in earnest. 

At about five in the afternoon, the clouds seemed to have been 
all blown up together into one dense mass of dark and threatening 
gloom, and, as if for miles around the wind had focussed to one 
spot, it burst upon the ship. The masts bent slowly down as she 
rose upon the wave, and the receding spray foamed among the 
spars. They must shorten sail ; it seems madness to ascend the 
straining ropes, but no one hesitates : there is a moment's lull in 
the trough of the sea ; some of the sailors are up already ; our 
favorite, the top-man, is first, busy with the reef of the main-top- 
sail. The ship rises on the swell, and the storm roars through 
the shrouds again : the sheets snap like a thread ; light as a cloud 
the canvass flies to leeward ; a man is entangled in its ropes, 
borne away upon the wind ; — the mist closes over him — he is 
seen no more. 

The tempest soon after subsided, without further mischief; 
when the weather cleared, we found ourselves close to the head- 
land we had seen two days before : we had been travelling back- 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 



wards and forwards, ten miles an hour, ever since. At the climax 
of the gale the noise had been so great, that many of those in 
their berths below thought we were assuredly lost. This convic- 
tion had very different effects upon different individuals ; some 
pulled the bed-clothes over their heads, and lay in shivering inac- 
tivity ; others were so dreadfully ill, that death itself scarcely 
appeared a change for the worse. Not so our nautically-inclined 
lieutenant ; he could no longer remain in doubt, and, determined 
to know the worst, emerged from the hatchway in full pirate cos- 
tume, as he had lain down at the beginning of the storm. Sprawl- 
ing on the deck, he looked out upon the sea : just at this moment 
a gigantic green wave, with a crest of foam, stood right over the 
ship ; with a shout of terror, and an expression of face in which 
fright had overcome starvation and sea-sickness, he rushed across 
the deck, grasping at the stanchion under the poop, the first sup- 
port he could lay hold of, twining his arms and legs round it with 
a force no persuasions could relax ; there he remained for two 
hours, a figure of fun never to be forgotten. The ship was soon 
put to rights, not having sustained any serious injury, and we 
went our way. 

A whale was always an object of sufHcient interest to collect 
us upon deck, and unmask a battery of telescopes. Our nearest 
view of one was under circumstances as advantageous to us as 
disagreeable to him. The ship was going through the water about 
four knots an hour, when the monster overtook us ; as we were 
travelling in the same direction, there was ample opportunity for 
observing the state of his affairs. He was attacked by three 
threshers, formidable looking fellows, about eight feet long, and 
had evidently much the worst of it, though he flourished his tail 
tremendously, flogging his track into a bloody foam. His enemies 
were most systematic in their attack ; each in his turn threw him- 
self out of the water, falling with full weight on the whale's head, 
thus keeping up a continual hammering while it was above the 
surface. It is said, but I am not pledged to the fact, that a sword- 
fish is always in league with these pursuers, poking the whale 
underneath with his sword, when sinking to avoid them. So that 
the poor victim is much in the situation of a member of the Church 
of England of the present day, as he swims in the sea of contro 



HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



versy — a blow from the evangelical pulpit strikes him down, and 
a thrust from the " Tracts for the Times " drives him up again ; 
the only difference is, that there is no bond of union amongst his 
assailants. 

It is said, that in a chase of this kind the quarry never escapes ; 
the fish in question were far too busy to attend to us ; they soon 
left us behind, and may be worrying each other still, for all I 
know to the contrary. 

That night was unusually mild and clear ; the young clergy- 
man and I remained on deck long after the others had gone be- 
low ; our talk was grave, but cheerful. There is something in 
the view of the material heavens at such a time, which always 
elevates the tone of feeling, and speaks to the heart of its highest 
hopes, sending you to rest with holy, happy thoughts : so it was 
with us. A few minutes before we parted, the bright full moon 
passed from behind a cloud, and straightway, from us to the far- 
off horizon, spread a track of pure and tremulous light over the 
calm sea. " This is not for us alone," said my companion ; 
" every waking wanderer over the great deep sees this path of 
glory too. So for each earnest heart upraised to heaven, a light 
from God himself beams upon the narrow way across the waste 
of life." 

The wind seemed to blow for ever from the west ', the only 
variety in our voyage was from one tack to the other. But we 
had a good ship, she was well handled, and her master never 
threw away a chance ; so, in spite of all difficulties, we found 
ourselves within a short distance of land twenty-four days after 
sailing. It is almost unnecessary to add that there was a fog, 
and that so thick, that we could scarcely see the bowsprit. An 
observation had, however, been taken at mid-day, and, having 
great confidence in the knowledge of our exact position, we kept 
boldly on, till we distinctly heard breakers in front of us ; by the 
time sail was shortened, we could hear this sound on either side. 
We were evidently in an indentation of the coast, quite near 
enough to the rocks to be unpleasant. Guns were fired for a 
pilot and to notice our approach, and a report from the shore re- 
turned a ready answer. At the same time the fog began to rise, 
first showing the long line of surf on three sides of us, then the 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 



abrupt and rugged cliffs. At length the great curtain folded 
itself up for another time, and the scene upon the stage was New- 
foundland. 

The mind must be either above or below the usual motive in- 
fluences of humanity, which does not feel a deep and stirring 
interest in the first view of the New World : though it be but a 
dim, faint shadow of what Plato's informant, or Prince Madoc, or 
Columbus experienced, when the sight of these vast lands, and 
simple, yet mysterious people, rewarded their almost superhuman 
venture. 

" The splendor and the havoc of the East" are said to fill the 
mind of the beholder with sad and solemn meditation on the 
glories and wonders of countries, whose degradation of to-day 
seems but the deeper from the relics of their former greatness ; 
the cities and temples, of an extent and magnificence ever since 
unrivalled, crumbled into shapeless ruin, leaving scarce a trace 
of what they once have been ; the sunny hills and pleasant val- 
leys, exuberant with luxurious plenty, withered into deserts ; the 
land where the wise men dwelt, and mighty captains governed, 
ruled over by craven, sensual slaves ; the birthplace of an eter- 
nal hope, now but the grave of a departed glory. Over this 
page in the great chronicle of the world, is written the memory 
of the Past. 

Then comes our Europe, with its very large towns, excellent 
gas lamps, highly efficient police, comfortable churches, with 
good stoves and ventilation ; with its express trains, and well- 
regulated post-office, improved steam-boats, electric telegraphs, 
and electric agriculture, liberal educations, and respectable gov- 
ernments. In all these we feel, and hear, and see, the reality of 
the Present. 

Now we turn to the West. Over its boundless tracts of rich 
and virgin soil is spreading a branch of the most vigorous among 
the European families, bearing with them every means and ap- 
pliance which the accumulated ingenuity of ages can supply, and 
working them with quenchless energy. Steamers thrust them- 
selves up unknown rivers ; and lo ! with the rapidity of a scenic 
change, the primeval forest yields to the bustling settlement. 

In the tangled wilderness, where they can scarcely struggle 
2* 



10 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



through, the surveyors trace out the lines of cities, which to- 
morrow are to play the part of the Babylon of yesterday, and the 
London of to-day. They grow great, rich, and intelligent, not 
with the slow and steady step of older nations, but with a hurried 
stride ; sometimes, perhaps, wandering a little from the straight 
path, but, guided by their destiny, still hastening on. 

Imagination runs mad in picturing what they have yet to be. 
In their unacted history we read, plain as the hand- writing at 
Belshazzar's feast, the promise of the Future. 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. II 



CHAPTER II. 

Newfoundland — The St. Lawrence. 

So excellent was the land- fall we had made, that, when the fog 
cleared away we found the bowsprit of the vessel pointing direct- 
ly into the harbor of St. John's. The entrance is about two 
hundred and fifty yards wide, and very difficult of access in bad 
weather with unfavorable winds : it is walled in by rugged cliffs 
and barren-looking hills. The defences are respectable, but not 
formidable, works — one of them facing you as you approach, 
with watchful cannon pointing up the harbor. There is no bar 
or shoal, but some dangerous rocks embarrass the entrance ; 
within, there is safe and commodious anchorage for any amount 
of shipping. 

In trying to describe St. John's, there is some difficulty in ap- 
plying an adjective to it sufficiently distinctive and appropriate. 
We find other cities coupled with words, v/hich at once give their 
predominant characteristic : — London the richest, Paris the 
gayest, St. Petersburgh the coldest. In one respect the chief 
town of Newfoundland has, I believe, no rival : we may, there- 
fore, call it the fishiest of modern capitals. Round a great part 
of the harbor are sheds, acres in extent, roofed with cod split in 
half, laid on like slates, drying in the sun, or rather the air, for 
there is not much of the former to depend upon. Those ships 
bearing nearly every flag in the world, are laden with cod ; those 
stout weatherly boats crowding up to the wharves, have just now 
returned from fishing for cod ; those few scant fields of cultiva- 
tion with lean crops coaxed out of the barren soil, are manured 
with cod ; those trim, snug-looking wooden houses, their hand- 
some furniture, the piano, and the musical skill of the young lady 
who plays it, the satin gown of the mother, the gold chain of the 
father, ar6 all paid for in cod ; the breezes from the shore, soft 



12 HOCHELAGA; OR, 



and warm on this bright August day, are rich, not with the odors 
of a thousand flowers, but of a thousand cod. Earth, sea, and 
air, are alike pervaded with this wonderful fish. There is only- 
one place which appears to be kept sacred from its intrusion, and 
strange to say, that is the dinner table ; an observation made on 
its absence from that apparently appropriate position, excited as 
much astonishment, as if I had made a remark to a Northumber- 
land squire that he had not a head dish of Newcastle coals. 

The town is irregular and dirty, built chiefly of wood ; the 
dampness of the climate rendering stone unsuitable. The heavy 
rains plough the streets into water courses. Thousands of lean 
dogs stalk about, quarrelling with each other for the offal of the 
fish, which lies plentifully scattered in all directions. This is 
their recreation : their business is to draw go-carts. There are 
also great numbers of cats, which, on account of the hostile rela- 
tions existing between them and their canine neighbors, generally 
reside on the tops of the houses. A large fish oil factory in the 
centre of the town, fills it with most obnoxious odors. 

There are many neat and comfortable houses in the vicinity, 
where the air, though a little foggy, is fresh and healthful. 
There are two church of England churches, one Wesleyan, and 
one Roman Catholic chapel. A large Roman Catholic cathedral 
is also being built. The churches of England and of Rome have 
each Bishops of Newfoundland. 

The population of the island is one hundred thousand ; one- 
half are Roman Catholics, principally of Irish descent, or 
emigrants, the remainder of English race, and various creeds. 

The trade of St. John's is very considerable ; they export fish 
and oil, and receive in return nearly all the luxuries and neces- 
saries of life ; the annual exports and imports average more than 
a million and a half pounds sterling each in value, and are 
rapidly increasing. They get port wine direct from Portugal in 
exchange for their dried fish ; with due deference to our English 
wine merchants, the best I have ever met. 

The seal fisheries employ numbers of active and experienced 
sailors from this port, in the North Seas ; their life is one of 
almost incredible hardship and danger, and subjects them to great 
alternations of abundance and distress. 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 13 

Snow usually falls in the beginning of December, and con- 
tinues till the end of April ; but there are frequent thaws in the 
meantime. Through the winter there is a constant succession 
of storms, the lakes and many of the bays and rivers are frozen 
over, and all internal communication is by sleighs. 

The colony is under the authority of a governor, who is assisted 
by a Legislative and Executive council of nine members. There 
is also a House of Representatives, elected by almost universal 
suffrage, consisting of fifteen delegates, not always selected for 
very high qualities. Indeed, some people are illiberal enough to 
imagine that the affairs of the country would not materially suffer 
if honorable members for such important constituencies as those 
of Kiddy Viddy Cove or Starvation Creek, were to direct their 
attention to cod-fishing instead of legislation. 

The most thriving settlements besides the capital, are Car- 
bonear, Harbor Grace, and Petit Harbor, all towns on the sea 
coast. 

If St. John's be the fishiest, it is also one of the friendliest 
places in the world ; no cold, formal, letter of introduction din- 
ners, but hearty, cordial, and agreeable hospitality. The society 
is, of course, very limited in extent, consisting of the clergy, the 
civil and military officers, and the principal merchants. Some 
of the latter have attained to considerable affluence, and are men 
whose kindness, intelligence, and practical views, render them 
agreeable and instructive associates. Among the younger mem- 
.bers of their families, accomplishments and the graces of life 
receive due attention ; not a few of them have had European 
education. The reunions of St. John's possess so much charm, 
that many among the officers of the army and navy who have 
participated in them, have carried away living vouchers for their 
attractions. 

We could scarce leave Newfoundland without having seen a 
specimen of the codfishing. One of our acquaintances kindly 
offered to drive us to Portugal Cove for the purpose, a distance of 
ten miles. The captain, the ensign, and myself, with our friend 
driving, formed the party. The conveyance was a light spider- 
like, double-seated carriage, drawn by a wiry, strong, brown 
horse ; he had a splendid shoulder and area a ewe neck, a can- 



14 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



ning-buck look, like a hare, and an uneasy tail ; just the sort of 
animal which instantly suggests running reins and kicking straps. 
He started at a fair trotting pace ; but our driver, by twisting 
the reins round each hand, and by setting his feet against the 
dash-board, showed that he expected work. All went on very 
smoothly, however, till we got within a couple of miles of our 
journey's end, when unfortunately the conversation turned upon 
American travellers. 

" This horse is one," said our friend, " he can do the mile in 
two minutes and fifty seconds." 

*' Indeed," said I. Now, "Indeed," must have been pro- 
nounced in some very expressive manner, and conveyed the 
extraordinary delusion that I wished to see it done, for our friend 
instantly made some sort of freemason sign, and away went the 
diabolical brute, up and dov/n hill, in a sort of shambling shuffling 
pace, at a rate which nearly took the breath out of my body. 
As soon as I could speak, I begged to assure his owner that I had 
not the least doubt of his powers, and implored of him to pull up. 
By the time I was informed that it was quite impossible, the 
animal stopped of his own accord at the inn at Portugal Cove. 

This establishment is a small wooden building, prettily situated 
on the banks of a turbulent little stream, which gets up a water- 
fall in view of the windows. It is a favorite spot for passing the 
first part of the honeymoon ; and is, perhaps, judiciously chosen, 
for there is nothing whatever of luxury, convenience, or 
amusement, to disturb the thoughts of the happy couple from 
each other. 

A straggling village of log houses lies along the shore, with a 
boat pier of the same material ; a fleet of fishing boats lay 
moored to it. We embarked in one, a rough clumsy concern ; 
and, with a wild unshaven fellow to guide us, put to sea. The 
bay is about the size of that of Tenby ; a large flat island, with 
steep sides, protects the opening, looking as if it had been snapped 
off the mainland and floated out to where it now stands ,• like all 
the rest of the sea-board, it is covered with scrubby, stunted 
forest. At the eastern end of the island is a very curious rock, 
standing about two hundred yards clear of it, and of about the 
same height, looking, in the distance, like one of the round 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 15 

towers of Ireland. Our boatman, speaking in a Cork brogue, 
slightly overlaid with a Yankee twang, said that, " No one, bar- 
ring the biids, had ever got to the top of it." The Captain 
gravely observed, that " unless the inducements to get there were 
very much increased, probably none ever would." 

We soon arrived at our fishery, and cast our lines of strong 
cord with a heavy leaden sink, and three or four hooks baited 
with slices of fish. In a minute or two there was a chorus of 
"I've got him;" and, as we pulled, the prizes plunged, dived, 
and twisted, filling the dark-green water with pale distorted 
ghosts of sea-monsters, which, as they neared the surface, and 
became exhausted, condensed into the sober realities of resigned 
and unresisting codfish. Our myrmidon immediately put an 
end to their sufferings, by striking them on the head with a 
short bludgeon he called "the priest." He then cut off* a piece 
of the tail of one of them, to furnish fresh bait. By thus encou- 
raging their cannibal propensities, we soon caught so many that 
we were heartily tired of the sport. To give us an idea of the 
innumerable multitudes of fish, the boatman cast a line, with a 
heavy weight at the end, and half a dozen hooks attached, full 
length into the water, till it had nearly reached the bottom, and 
then jerked it along, pulling it towards him ; it seldom came up 
without a victim writhing on one of the barbs. Fully contented 
with this specimen of the truly national sport of Newfoundland, I 
reluctantly trusted myself to the mercy of the high trotting horse 
again, and he soon whirled us home. 

The road was not without beauty, but of a sad and desolate 
character, which the few miserable patches of cultivation and the 
wretched log huts by the road-side, did not tend to enliven. 
Windsor lake, or, "Twenty mile pond," as the people prefer 
calling it, is a large, picturesque sheet of water, with some pretty, 
lonely-looking islands ; but its shores are shapeless hills, and its 
forests stunted brushwood. 

From the top of the last eminence before descending to St. 
John's, the view is very striking. The finely-situated town 
spread along the shore, the massive government house in the 
foreground, relieved by cheerful ornamental villas round it, the 
roadstead filled with shipping and small boats, the old, barren 



16 HOCHELAGA; OR, 



coast beyond, softening down, to the right, into green fields and 
gardens; while opposite, on the left, grim-looking Signal hill, 
with the union-jack floating over the fog on the top, protects the 
entrance of the harbor. And far away, filling up the back- 
ground of the picture, with its hard, dark line against the sum- 
mer's sky, lies calm, deep, and treacherous — the great Atlantic. 

In the spring of the year 1497, a small squadron of ships 
sailed from Bristol, in search of a passage to India by the north- 
west. Two men of Venetian origin, John Cabot and his son 
Sebastian, a youth of twenty years of age, undertook their 
guidance. After a toilsome voyage of many weeks, they 
entered a region of vast banks, fogs, and mists, but continued on 
with unshaken hardihood. About three o'clock on the morning 
of the 24th of June, they reached a land hitherto unnoted in any 
map or record ; sterile and uncultivated, abounding in great 
white bears and elks. The discoverers called this country by a 
name signifying '' rich in fish," from the numbers which swarmed 
in the rivers and along the sea-coast. The inhabitants were wild 
and unfriendly, clothed with the skins of beasts, and painted with 
a reddish clay. 

The Cabots returned to England that year, and it does not 
appear that any further notice was taken of this country, which 
the English called Newfoundland, till 1534 ; when the brave 
Jacques Cartier, with only sixty men, sailed from St, Malo in 
two small vessels, under the French flag, and nearly circum- 
navigated the island. He found it to be a great triangle, of 
irregular shape, and about nine hundred miles round, with 
deep indentures and numerous harbors, but with a soil every- 
where unfruitful. 

Two Englishmen, named Elliott and Thorn, traded there for 
some years under the protection of Henry VIII., obtaining rich 
furs from the natives. At length these unhappy men, with a 
body of their dependents, made a settlement, and determined to 
remain there the winter. They knew not what they had to 
meet ; their provisions failed, none of them survived, and tradi- 
tion says they ate each other. 

The most remarkable among the adventurers who visited these 
bleak shores, for many years afterwards, was Sir Humphry Gil- 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 17 

bert. He took possession in the name of Queen Elizabeth, but 
was lost on his return to England. His good brave words in the 
storm are left us still, " Courage, friends, we are as near Heaven 
here as on the land." 

From the beginning of the seventeenth century the French had 
a settlement at Placentia, on the south coast. George Calvert 
landed from England in the year 1622, having with him seeds, 
grain, and cattle. His settlers were successful, and some of 
their descendants founded, in a commodious harbor, the capital, 
St. John's. 

At the treaty of Utrecht, Louis XIV. of France gave up his 
claim to the island, which probably he did not care much about, 
as his subjects retained the right of fishing. It has ever since 
remained an English colony, and is at present garrisoned by a 
detachment of artillery and three companies of infantry. The 
barren soil and ungenial climate defy the skill and industry 
of the husbandman-: wheat does not grow, the scanty crops 
of barley and oats rarely ripen ; from sheltered places near the 
towns a moderate supply of potatoes and garden vegetables is 
forced from the unwilling earth. There are a few cattle, the 
grasses being plenty and nutritious. All else, for the use of man, 
comes from over sea. During the six months summer, some 
of the lakes and bays are rich in short-lived beauty. Few have 
penetrated into the interior, for any distance ; the hills, as you 
advance, rise into mountains, the shrubs into trees. There is an 
idea that the centre of the island is a great valley, filled with nu- 
merous lakes and impassable morasses : none of the rivers are 
navigable* far up the country, and there seems but little to tempt 
the explorer. 

The natives met with in the first discovery were Esquimaux ; 
fierce men of stalwart frame and intractable disposition ; their 
complexion was a dark red ; they were bold hunters and fishers, 
and of great courage in battle. From the first, they and the 
white men were deadly foes. The Mic-Mac Indians of Nova 
Scotia, and these red men, carried on a war of extermination 
against each other for centuries ; each landing, with destructive 
swoop on the other's coasts, scalping the men, and carrying the 
women into slavery. The Esouimaux warriors were more fre- 



18 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



quently victorious, till, in an evil hour, they provoked the wrath 
of the pale faces ; the rifle and the bayonet soon broke their 
spirit. Abandoning the coasts and the hunting-grounds of their 
fathers, they fled into the dreary forests of the interior. Some- 
times, in the long winter nights, they crept out from their wild 
fastnesses, and visited some lonely hamlet with a terrible ven- 
geance. The settlers, in return, hunted them down like wolves, 
and, in the course of years, their life of misery reduced their 
numbers, and weakened their frames so much, that they never 
ventured to appear. It was known that some few still lingered, 
but they were almost forgotten. 

The winter of 1830 was unusually severe in this country, and 
prolonged beyond those of former years. Towards its close, 
a settler was hewing down trees at some distance from one of 
the remote villages, when two gaunt figures crept out from the 
neighboring " bush :" with sad cries and imploring gestures, they 
tried to express their prayer for help. The white man, terrified 
by their uncouth and haggard looks, seized his gun, which lay at 
hand, and shot the foremost ; the other tossed his lean arms wildly 
into the air — the woods rang with his despairing shrieks as he 
rushed away. Since then, none of the fallen race have been 
seen. The emaciated frame of the dead man showed how dire 
had been their necessity. There is no doubt that the last of the 
Red men perished in that bitter winter. 

The blue Peter summoned us on board ; the wind had suddenly 
become favorable, leaving but little time for farewells ; but ours 
were not the less warm and grateful for their being hurriedly 
spoken. Hats and handkerchiefs waved from the shore— an an- 
swering cheer from the ships, and we are on our way again. 

For the first day we kept within sight of land ; the character 
of the coast was everywhere the same: bluff* headlands, deep 
bays, and monstrous hills covered with dwarf firs. On the fourth 
morning we passed close under the Bird islands, strange, hermit 
rocks, not more than a few acres in extent, without a shred of 
vegetation, standing alone in the unfathomable waters, far out of 
sight of land. Millions of white sea fowl circle round them, 
screaming overhead, or diving and splashing in the water below. 

One day more and we skirt the dangerous, desolate shores of 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 19 

Anticosti, rich in wrecks, accursed in human suffering. This 
hideous wilderness has been the grave of hundreds ; by the 
slowest and ghastliest deaths they died — starvation. Washed 
ashore from maimed and sinking ships — saved to destruction, 
they drag their chilled and battered limbs up the rough rocks ; 
for a moment, warm with hope, they look around with eager, 
straining eyes, for shelter — and there is none ; the failing sight 
darkens on hill and forest, forest and hill, and black despair. 
Plours and days waste out the lamp of life, until at length 
the withered skeletons have only strength to die. These terri- 
ble and frequent disasters have at last caused steps to be taken 
to prevent their recurrence ; there are now stations on the 
island, with stores of clothing and provisions, which have already 
preserved many lives. At Sable island, off Nova Scotia, the 
same system is adopted ; there are also a considerable num- 
ber of wild horses on the sandy hills, dwindled descendants of 
some shipwrecked ancestors : — in cases of emergency these stock 
the larder. 

It was quite a relief when we found ourselves clear of this 
dismal neighborhood, as with fair wind and crowding sails we 
entered the waters of the St. Lawrence. From the point of 
Gaspe to the Labrador coast, is one hundred and twenty miles ; 
and through this ample channel, half the fresh water of the world 
has its outlet to the sea, spreading back its blue winding path for 
more than two thousand miles, through still reach, foaming rapid, 
ocean, lake, and mighty cataract, to the trackless desert of the 
west. 

We are near the left bank ; there is no trace of man's hand, 
such as God made it, there it is. From the pebbly shore to the 
craggy mountain top — east and west, countless miles — away to 
the frozen north, where everlasting winter chains the sap of life — 
one dark forest, lone and silent from all time. 

For two days more there was nothing to attract the attention 
but the shoals of white porpoise : we were welcomed by several ; 
they rolled and frolicked round the ship, rushing along very fast, 
stopping to look at us, passing and repassing for half an hour at a 
time, then going off to pay their compliments to some other 
strangers. The pilot came quietly on board during the night, 



20 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



and seemed as much at home the next day as if he had been one 
of the crew. 

By degrees the Great River narrowed to twenty miles, and we 
could see the shore on both sides, with the row of white specks 
of houses all along the water's edge, which at length seemed to 
close into a continuous street. Every here and there was a 
church, with clusters of dwellings round it, and little silver 
streams, wandering through narrow strips of clearing, behind 
them. We got very near the shore once ; there was but little 
wind ; we fancied it bore us the smell of new-mown hay, and the 
widow thought she heard church bells ; but the ripple of the 
water, gentle as it was, treated the tender voice too roughly, and 
it could not reach us. Several ships were in sight ; some trav- 
elling our road, wayworn and weary ; others standing boldly out 
to meet the waves and storms we had just passed through. Rows 
of little many-colored flags ran up to their mizen peaks, fluttered 
out what they had to say, and came down again when they got 
their answer. 

The nights were very cold ; but had they been far more so, 
we must have lingered on deck to see the Northern Lights. 
They had it all to themselves, not a cloud to stop their running 
wild over the sky. Starting from behind the mountains, they 
raced up through the blue fields of heaven, and vanished : again 
they reappeared, where we least expected them ; spreading over 
all space one moment, shrinking into a shivering streak the next, 
quicker than the tardy eye could trace. 

There is a dark shade for many miles, below where the 
Laquerry pours its gloomy flood into the pure waters of the St. 
Lawrence. Two degrees to the westward lies a circular sheet 
of water called Lake St. John, forty miles wide, fed by numerous 
small rivers. Here is the birth-place of the great tributary ; its 
separate existence ends at Zadousac. Its course lies from west 
to east, half-way through a rich country, with a comparatively 
mild climate, where only a few wandering Indians hunt and fish, 
exchanging their furs with English traders at Chicontimi. Here 
this rude commerce has grouped together a number of houses, 
round a church built by the Jesuits two centuries ago. Great 
Bay is twelve miles lower down ; thence to the river's mouth, 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 21 

the cliffs rise straight out of the water, sometimes to a thousand 
feet in height, in some places two or three miles apart. There 
is a great depth between, far greater than that of the St. Law- 
rence at the confluence, and large ships can go up so far. About 
three thousand white people are scattered about these districts ; 
they have saw mills, and ply their laborious industry in the bush, 
felling the tall pine-trees. 

Off the entrance to the gloomy Laquerry, lies Red Island. 
The shore is rocky and perilous ; as we passed, the morning sun 
shone brightly upon it and the still waters ; but when the No- 
vember mists hang round, and the north-east wind sweeps up the 
river, many a brave ship ends her voyage there. To the south- 
east is seen a gentler sister — the Green Isle. 

It would be wearisome to tell of all the woody solitudes that 
deck the bosom of the St. Lawrence, or of the white, cheerful 
settlements along its banks, some of them growing up to towns 
as we advance ; their back-ground swelling into mountains. It 
is a scene of wonderful beauty, often heightened by one of the 
strangest, loveliest freaks of lavish nature. The mirage lifts up 
little rocky, tufted islands, into the air, and ships, with their 
taper masts turned downwards, glide past them ; the tops of high 
and distant hills sink down to the water's edge, and long streets 
of trim, demure-looking houses, rest their foundations in the sky. 

We are now at Grosse Isle ; the pilot points out the quaran- 
tine station, the church, the hospital, and, in the distance, the fair 
and fertile island of Orleans. Bold Cape Tourment is at length 
past ; it has wearied our sight lor two days, like a long, straight 
road. It grows very dark, and the evening air is keen ; we 
must go below. 

About midnight I awoke. There was the splash and heavy 
rattling sound of the falling anchor ; the ship swung slowly 
round with the tide, and was still ; we had reached Quebec. 

I looked out of the window of my cabin ; we lay in deep 
shade under a high headland, which shut out half the sky. 
There were still a few scattered lights, far and wide over the 
steep shore, and among the numerous shipping around us. 

Our voyage was rather a tedious one ; without doubt you 
think so too. 



22 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



CHAPTER III. 

Quebec. — Historical sketch of Canada. 

Take mountain and plain, sinuous river and broad, tranquil 
waters, stately ship and tiny boat, gentle hill and shady valley, 
bold headland and rich, fruitful fields, frowning battlement and 
cheerful villa, glittering dome and rural spire, flowery garden 
and sombre forest — group them all into the choicest picture of 
ideal beauty your fancy can create, arch it over with a cloudless 
sky, light it up with a radiant sun, and lest the sheen should be 
too dazzling, hang a veil of lighted haze over all, to soften the 
lines and perfect the repose — you will then have seen Quebec on 
this September morning. 

The river St. Charles, winding through low, rich grounds, 
empties itself into a wide basin, closed in, to the north-east, by 
the island of Orleans. In the angle it makes with the St. Law- 
rence, is a lofty promontory ; there stands the city, walled and 
bastioned round. On an undulating slope, rising gradually from 
the margin of the smaller stream to the foot of the. battlements, 
lie the suburbs of St. Roch and St. Valliere ; St. John's spreads 
up the shoulder of the height, along the land face of the de- 
fences ; St. Louis is the continuation ; thence, to the river St. 
Lawrence, is open ground. On the highest point of the promon- 
tory, and the most advanced into the stream, is Cape Diamond, 
the strongest citadel in the New World. On the river side, a 
hundred yards of perpendicular rock forbid the foot of man ; 
another is fenced off from the town by a massive fortification and 
broad glacis ; the third side of the grim triangle looks out upon 
the plains of Abraham, in a line of armed ramparts. 

The lower town is built on a narrow strip of land, saved from 
the water, under the lofty cliffs of the promontory, stretching 
from the suburb of St. Roch to where the citadel overhangs. 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 23 

Busy wharves extend all round the town and for three miles up 
the Great River, with numerous ships alongside. 

From Quebec to the opposite shore is but three quarters of a 
mile, but the basin just below is five times as wide, and large 
and deep enough to hold the English Navy. Through the strait 
the tides flow' with great rapidity, rising and falling twenty feet, 
as the flood or ebb of the sea dams up or draws away the waters 
of the stream. There are many and dangerous currents ; very 
i'ew ever rise again who sink for a moment in its treacherous 
arms ; even strong swimmers have gone down like lead. 

The pretty village of Point Levy, with its churches and neat 
dwellings, ornaments the opposite side of the river ; it, too, has 
a share of wharves, rafts and shipping. Quaint ferry-boats, with 
paddle-wheels worked by four fat horses, pulling and pufling 
round on the deck, cross every four minutes. Dirty, impudent- 
looking little steamers run out from hidden nooks in the shore, 
lay hold of huge ships twenty times as big as them.selves, and 
v/alk away with them as an ant carries a grain of wheat. 

When people came on board, they told us the English news 
they had got two or three posts since we left. There was the 
staff* officer to give the soldiers their orders, the emigrant agent, 
some people of business come to look after their consignments, 
and a few to greet their friends, our fellow-travellers. No one 
coming to meet me, I went ashore on my own account ; landed 
at the bustling, dirty market-place, climbed up into a caleche — a 
very queer-looking affair on two high wheels, with a shaft frame 
like a gig, the body swinging on broad leather straps, fastened on 
to rude springs before and behind. The driver perched himself 
on the narrow seat where the dashboard should have been, 
shouted, Marchez f marchez f and the stout little horse started at 
a rapid pace. 

The way was up a narrow, winding street, twisting up the 
steep end of the promontory, with short cuts for foot passengers 
from bend to bend ; we enter the fortified town through Prescott 
Gate, turn sharp to the left, and I am set down at a large hotel, 
with an open space in front, called the Place d'Armes. 

Now, while we rest after the long and weary voyage, lend me 
patience while I tell the old tale of how, and by whom, this fair 



24 HOCHELAGA; OR, 



city came to be built, and why the flag of dear Old England 
floats over the citadel. 

The first European who ever visited these lands was Jacques 
Cartier. In the month of May, 1535, the year after his circum- 
navigation of Newfoundland, he again sailed from St. Malo with 
three small ships. He and his followers were blessed by the 
bishop in the cathedral, received the holy sacrament, and bade 
farewell to their friends, as if for ever. The little squadron was 
for a long time dispersed, but met again with great joy on the 
28th of June. Having visited Newfoundland, they kept it to the 
north, and sailed into a large gulf, full of islands ; they passed 
on the north side of Anticosti, and sometimes landing by the way, 
came at length to the mouth of the Jaquenary. By means of 
two Indians, taken in the former voyage, at the Bay of Chalcuss, 
they conversed with the inhabitants, and overcame their terror. 
These simple people then received them with songs of joy and 
dances, giving them freely of all the provisions they had. The 
adventurers soon gathered that there was a town some days' sail 
higher up ; this, and the river, and the countries round about, the 
natives called Hochelaga ; thither they bent their way. The 
kind-hearted Indians tried, by entreaties and innocent stratagems, 
to detain their dangerous guests. 

During the voyage up the stream they passed shores of great 
beauty ; the climate was genial, the weather warmer than that 
of France, and everywhere they met with unsuspicious friend- 
ship. They found Hochelaga a fortified town among rich corn- 
fields, on an island, under the shade of a mountain which they 
called Mont Royal ; time has changed it to Montreal. The old 
name, like the old people, is long since forgotten. The inhabit- 
ants had stores of corn and fish laid up with great care, also to- 
bacco, which Europeans saw here for the first time. The natives 
were courteous and friendly in their manners, some of them of 
noble beauty ; they bowed to a Great Spirit, and knew of a future 
state. Their king wore a crown, which he transferred to Jacques 
Cartier ; but, when they brought their sick and infirm, trusting 
to his supernatural power to heal, the Christian soldier blessed 
them with the cross, and prayed that heaven might give them 
health. 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 25 

The adventurers returned to France next year, carrying off 
one of the kings with them, to the great grief of his subjects ; he 
became contented with his lot, but soon after died. This was the 
first wrong the doomed race suffered from the white men. Four 
years afterwards, the Sieur de Roberval, graced with many high- 
sounding titles, and aided by Jacques Cartier, landed at the 
mouth of the St. Charles River. The inhabitants, mindful of 
former injury, met the strangers with war instead of peace. 
Four miles from Quebec is the village of Charlesbourg ; there, 
three hundred years ago, the French built their first stronghold, 
to guard themselves from just vengeance. Their leader, tortured 
by the dissensions of his followers, soon led them back to France, 
and in 1549 he, with his brave brother, sailed to seek the 
visionary Cathay, and were heard of no more. 

At the end of the sixteenth century, when the gloom of this 
failure had passed away, Chauvin and Pontgrave opened a fur 
trade at Zadousac, without much success. Next followed the 
piratical De Monts, with a fleet of forty sail, terrible alike to the 
white and native races ; his monstrous crimes caused his ruin. 
His successor, the worthy Champlain, founded the city of 
Quebec, in 1608, and cultivated the rich valley of the St. 
Charles. 

With some of his followers he penetrated to the gi'eat lakes of 
the west, and returned in safety from among their fierce and 
savage nations. To this vast territory he gave the name of 
Canada, or New France. For many years the settlers met with 
great difficulties from the climate and the Indians, but adventurers 
poured in from the old world, and wars and fire-water thinned 
their foes. Some powerful tribes sought their alliance, serving 
them to the end with faith and courage. Montreal, Niagara, and 
other towns were founded, and Quebec was strengthened into the 
Gibraltar of the West. 

The quarrels of the mother countries involved these colonists 
in constant difficulties with their English neighbors of the south, 
and their Indian allies added unheard-of horrors to their wars. 
After many alternate successes, a British army of great force, 
under the command of General Amherst, invaded Canada in 
1759. Ticonderoga fell into his power, and Niagara was won by 

PART I. 3 



26 HOCHELAGA : OR, 



the division of General Johnson, after a gallant battle. These 
triumphs were of but little moment, for all knew that on Quebec 
the fate of Canada depended, and the repulse of General Hill half 
a century before, had given a lesson of its strength. A large 
fleet, however, commanded by Admiral Saunders, carrying an 
army of seven thousand men, reached the Island of Orleans in 
the end of June. 

For a few years, and for a great purpose, England was given 
one of those men whose names light up the page of history. He 
was humble, and gentle as a child, graceful in person and man- 
ners ; raised by transcendant merit in early manhood, he did 
high service at Minden and Louisbourg. The purpose was ac- 
complished, and the gift resumed at Quebec, when he was thirty- 
five years old. This v/as Wolfe ; to him the expedition was 
entrusted. 

He took possession of the Island of Orleans, and occupied Point 
Levy with a detachment. His prospects were not encouraging : 
the great stronghold frowned down on him from an almost inac- 
cessible position, bristling with guns, defended by a superior force 
from a gallant army, and inhabited by a hostile population. 
Above the city, steep banks rendered landing almost impossible ; 
below, the country, for eight miles, was embarrassed by two 
rivers, many redoubts, and the watchful Indians. A part of the 
fleet lay above the town, the remainder in the North Channel, be- 
tween the Island of Orleans and Montmorenci ; each ebb-tide 
floated down fire-ships, but the sailors towed them ashore, and 
they were harmless. 

The plan which first suggested itself, was to attack by the side 
of Montmorenci, but the brave Montcalm was prepared to meet 
it. On the 31st of July, a division of grenadiers landed below the 
falls ; some of the boats grounded on a shoal, and caused great 
confusion, so that arrangements, excellent in themselves, were in 
their result disastrous. These men, with an indiscreet ardor, 
advanced unformed and unsupported, against the entrenchments. 
A steady and valiant defence drove them back ; a storm 
threatened, and the loss was heavy, so the General re-embarked 
the troops with quiet regularity. The soldiers drooped under 
their reyerse, but there was always one cheerful face, that of 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 27 

their leader. Inward care and labor wasted his weak frame ; he 
wrote to England sadly and despondingly, for the future was very 
dark ; but he acted on an inspiration. Though his Generals 
were brave men, they started at his plans ; he stood alone in his 
own bold counsel, risked the great venture, and won. 

On the night of the 12th of September, the fleet approached the 
shore below the town, as if to force a landing. The troops em- 
barked at one in the morning, and ascended the river for three 
leagues, when they got into boats, and floated noiselessly down 
the stream, passing the sentries unobserved. Where they landed, 
a steep, narrow path wound up the side of the cliff forming the 
river's bank ; it was defended bravely against them, but in vain. 
When the sun rose, the army stood upon the plains of Abraham. 

Montcalm found he was worsted as a General, but it was still 
left to him to fight as a soldier ; his order of battle was promptly 
and skilfully made. The regular troops were his left, resting on 
the bank over the river ; the gallant Canadian Seigneurs, with 
their Provincials his right, supported by two regiments. Beyond 
them, crowding the English left, were clouds of French and 
Indian skirmishers. 

General Townshend met these with six regiments ; the Louis- 
bourg Grenadiers formed the front of battle, to the right, resting 
on the cliff; there was Wolfe, exhorting them to be steady, and 
to reserve their discharge. The French attacked at forty paces ; 
they staggered under the fire, but repaid it well ; at length they 
slowly gave ground. As they fell back, the bayonet and the 
claymore of the Highlanders broke their ranks, and drove them 
with great carnage into the town. 

At the first, Wolfe had been wounded in the wrist ; another 
shot struck him in the body ; but he dissembled his suffering, 
for his duty v/as not yet done. Again a ball passed through his 
breast, and he sank. When they raised him from the ground, 
he tried with his faint hand to clear the death mist from his eyes ; 
he could not see how the battle went, but the voice which fell 
upon his dying ear told him he was immortal. 

There is a small monument on the place of his death, with 
the date, and this inscription: — "Here died Wolfe, victorious. 
He was too precious to be left, even on the field of his glory. 



28 HOCHELAGA; OR, 



England, jealous of his ashes, laid them with his father's in the 
town where he was born. The chivalrous Montcalm was also 
slain in a lofty situation on Cape Diamond. A pillar is erected 
to the memory of two illustrious men, Wolfe and Montcalm." 

Five days after the battle, Quebec surrendered, on such terms 
as generous victors give to gallant foes. The news of these 
events reached home but forty-eight hours later than the first 
discouraging despatch, and spread universal joy for the great 
gain, and sorrow for its price. Throughout all broad England 
were illuminations and songs of triumph, except in one country 
village, for there Wolfe's widowed mother mourned her only 
child. 

This is the story of Quebec nearly a hundred years ago, and 
the reason why that flag of dear old England floats over its 
citadel. 

Shortly after the cession of Canada by France, in 1763, 
English law was, by Royal proclamation, established in the colo- 
ny. In 1774, the French civil law was restored, with some 
slight reserve as to titles of land. The English criminal code 
was retained, and religious liberty and the rights of the clergy 
were guaranteed, subject to the supremacy of the crown. 

These concessions caused most of the English settlers to re- 
move, in sullen discontent, further to the west, where they were 
free from the hated French seignorial rights. There they founded 
Upper Canada. In 1791, legislatures were granted to each pro- 
vince, the Lower Chamber elective, the Upper appointed by the 
royal authority, and thus the latter became exclusively British. 
These two bodies were at once arrayed against each other, and it 
must be confessed that there were many just grounds of com- 
plaint and abuses which the elective house always vigorously 
attacked. 

In the year 1828, the people of the Lower province presented 
an address, signed by 87,000 persons, complaining of the partial 
distribution of patronage, the illegal application of the public 
money, and some Acts regulating trade and tenures, of the Im- 
perial Parliament. At the same time 10,000 of the British 
inhabitants of the province petitioned to be freed from the mis- 
chievous pressure of the French civil law. In 1831, great con- 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 29 

cessions were made to the French party ; the composition of the 
legislative council was altered in their favor ; the control of all 
funds proceeding from duties in the colony was yielded to the 
House of Assembly, and they were given power to alter the laws 
on the tenures of property. 

England, having granted so much in a generous spirit of con- 
ciliation, was unfortunately met by exorbitant demands of fur- 
ther concessions ; such as to make the Upper House elective, 
the executive council directly responsible to the people, and to 
amend the agreements made by the government with the Canada 
Land Company. These were at once refused, and the assembly 
stopped the supplies. 

While affairs were thus at a dead lock, violent demagogues, 
generally men of some education and very little responsibility, 
tried, by every means in their power, to excite the minds of the 
simple French Canadians to resist these supposed wrongs. They 
were unfortunately but too successful, and in some districts the 
people rose in revolt. There were not wanting men in the 
English House of Commons, who rejoiced in the insurrection, 
and expressed ardent wishes for its success. 

The government determined at once to strike at the root of the 
evil, by an effort to seize the leaders of the sedition, who were 
supposed to be assembled at St. Denis and St. Charles, on the 
Richelieu river, which flows into the St. Lawrence from the 
south. 

On the night of November 22, 1837, a detachment from Sorel, 
of about four hundred and fifty men, marched upon St. Denis, 
and arrived at its destination at ten in the morning. The night 
had been one of extraordinary severity, the roads were ploughed 
up by the heavy rains, and the fatigue of a twelve hours' march, 
under such difficulties, had exhausted and harassed the troops. 

The insurgents, to the number of fifteen hundred, were posted 
behind a barricade, in a fortified house and some buildings on 
the flank. Their leader was Wolfred Nelson, who had at least 
the merit of being a brave rebel, and who at present represents 
the Richelieu district in the provincial parliament, having expe- 
rienced the clemency of the imperial government. 

A sharp fire opened upon the troops when they sippeared, and 



30 HOCHELAGA; OR, 



the efforts against the entrenched position failed, the resistance 
being very determined. The ammunition of the assailants was 
soon exhausted, and they were obliged to yield the victory ; the 
roads had become impassable, a gun was abandoned in the re- 
treat, and sixteen men were killed and wounded. 

This first and last gleam of sunshine on rebellion was dark- 
ened by as ruthless and cowardly an assassination as ever 
stained a cause. An officer of the 32d regiment, Lieutenant 
Weir, had been sent with despatches to another detachment ; on 
returning to the retreating one, he was betrayed, it is said, by 
his driver, into the hands of the rebels at St. Denis. They sent 
him as a prisoner to St. Charles, under the charge of Francis 
Jalbert, formerly a Captain of militia, and another man. Both, 
I believe, are still alive to bear the curse of their foul crime. 

They tied their victim's hands behind his back with cords, 
placed him in a cart, and went on their journey. The roads 
were so bad that the horse soon stopped ; Jalbert told their pri- 
soner to get out of the conveyance and walk ; as he could not 
move his hands, and his limbs were chilled and stiff, he had 
some difficulty in reaching the ground, and then leant against the 
cart to support himself; at the same time remonstrating, and in- 
sisting on having his arms unbound. Jalbert, irritated ^t this, 
rushed at him from behind, and stabbed him in the back with a 
sword. He fell, and the weapon remained firmly fixed, from the 
strength of the blow. The murderer, holding the hilt still in 
his hand, stamped with his heavy heel on the prostrate body, till 
he dragged out the blade ; writhing with pain, tied down, and 
helpless, the poor young man crept under the cart wheels for 
protection ; but the human tigers, one with*the sword, the other 
with an axe, struck at him as he lay, maiming him at every 
blow. 

There was no hope of escape ; but, by a sort of instinct, he 
struggled up and made an effort to limp away ; pursued, he 
turned and tried feebly with his foot to parry the assassin's 
sword. The other was behind him, an(^ swung the heavy axe 
down on his bare head ; he felt the coming blow, bent to avoid 
it, and threw up his bound hands to avert the fall. The blunt 
steel, with a crushing, mangling sound, tore off his fingers and 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 31 

beat in his skull. The murderers then threw the body into the 
Richelieu river, and covered it with stones ; some brother offi- 
cersj guided by the villagers, found it there, but could scarcely 
recognize, in the battered corpse, the gay and gallant young offi- 
cer they had so lately seen. Who can be surprised that some of 
the exasperated soldiery took a fierce revenge ? 

On the same night the troops marched on St. Denis, Lieuten- 
ant-Colonel Wetherall left Chambly, with five hundred men and 
two guns, for St. Charles. The intention was that these two 
attacks should have been simultaneous, but the bridges were de- 
stroyed, the weather was very severe, and the roads were diffi- 
cult, so that the detachment did not arrive till noon on the 25th. 
The rebels were numerous, strongly posted in field works, 
and animated by the news of the success at St. Denis. The gal- 
lant Colonel Wetherall, as soon as he had formed his troops, led 
them to the assault. After a sturdy defence the position was 
carried, and the village burnt. The insurgents suffered a heavy 
loss : the troops had twenty-one killed and wounded. 

This disaster was fatal to the hopes of the rebels on the Riche- 
lieu ; and, soon aftei% they all dispersed. A man named Brown 
had been their leader ; he showed himself the dastard through 
the brief struggle ; and, at the first symptom of reverse, deserted 
his deluded followers, and fled to the United States. All the 
leaders, except Nelson, added disgraceful cov/ardice to their 
treason. He was taken, having stood by his people to the last. 

There is a rich and beautiful district, called " The County of 
the Two Mountains," thirty miles up the Ottawa river, west of 
Montreal. The highest of the hills from which it derives its 
name is called Calvary, held sacred by the Canadians and the 
remnants of the two great Indian nations, the Mohawks and Al- 
gonquins, living at its base. A large lake lies in its shade, ter- 
minated by the rapids of St. Anne ; here, in the old time, the 
voyagers used to bid farewell to the haunts of men, in the church 
of their tutelary saint, and receive the blessing on their journeys. 
We have all heard their beautiful boat song in our English 
homes ; its tones are very sweet on their own bright waters. 
Moore's words are of this spot, in the beautiful line — 
" We'll sing at St. Anne's our parting hymn." 



32 HOCHELAGA; OR, 



At the time of our story, this lovely country was deformed by the 
evil passions of men ; it was the centre of the revolt, the scene 
of its worst excesses. A numerous body of the disaffected were 
assembled here, led by a man named Girod, a clever demagogue, 
who had received a good education, but was devoid of courage 
or principle. 

On the morning of the 13th of December, Sir John Colborne, 
the commander of the forces in Canada, with about thirteen hun- 
dred men, advanced towards this district from Montreal, along the 
left bank of the Ottawa. On the opposite side was the fortified 
village of St. Eustache ; the army crossed the river on the 14th, 
and invested it. The greater number of the insurgents, terrified 
at the approach of danger, fled in the night : among these was 
Girod ; he was overtaken, and put the seal upon his shame by 
suicide. A brave, misguided enthusiast, named Chenier, with 
about four hundred men, threw themselves into the church and 
the adjoining buildings, and defended themselves with courage 
and constancy ; but their cover was beaten down, and finally 
fired by the artillery ; their leader and many of their number 
were slain, the remainder taken or dispersed. 

The next day the troops advanced on St. Benoit, where had 
been the stronghold of the insurrection ; a vigorous resistance 
was expected, but the leaders who were so bold in speech dared 
not act out their treason ; a deputation from the inhabitants came 
to beg for mercy ; they said that those who had incited them to 
rise had deserted them in their time of trial. Their submission 
was accepted, and they were allowed to depart to their homes. 

On the 16th, Sir John Colborne returned to Montreal, leaving 
a detachment to reduce the rest of the district ; there was no 
further resistance. Many loyalists had fled from St. Eustache 
and the Riviere du Chene, during the brief power of the insur- 
gents, suffering much insult and hardship. When the wheel 
turned, these injuries were revenged in the blackened hearths of 
the defeated ; the soldiery exerted themselves to the utmost to 
save the villages, and partially succeeded. 

The three principal newspapers employed in spreading the dis- 
affection, vanished at the first outbreak, as did also the great 
leader of their party in the house of assembly : he, in after times, 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 33 

expressed the strongest disapprobation of these scenes of violence 
and danger ; and, while they were being enacted, gave a proof 
of his dislike to them quite convincing to his followers, by keep- 
ing his own person out of their reach. Many of his admirers, no 
doubt, regretted very much when flying from the law or mount- 
ing the scaffold, that they had not imitated his later proceedings 
as implicitly as they had acted on the plain tendencies of his 
principles. The next time he was heard of, he was safely set- 
tled in the State of New York. Perhaps, if the insurrection had 
terminated successfully, he might at length have overcome his 
horror of the bloodshed which purchased it. His ardent patriot- 
ism might have urged him to sacrifice his own feelings to the 
public good, and " La Nation Canadienne " might have had the 
benefit of the future services of its principal hero. 

The troubles in Canada caused great excitement among a cer- 
tain class of men in the United States : some, with a sincere love 
for freedom, and ve"ry many others with a still sincerer love for 
plunder, were moved to assist their Canadian neighbors, whom 
they called " The Patriots." These sympathizers assembled in 
large bodies, principally threatening the upper province. They 
thought it an excellent opportunity for playing the game in which 
their countrymen had succeeded in Texas ; their opponents being 
English, instead of Mexican, spoiled the parallel. " The sympa- 
thizers," — what soft and kindly ideas the name they assumed 
suggests ! Tearful eyes and cambric handkerchiefs, good Sama- 
ritan acts of tenderness and charity, soothing words of consola- 
tion. Not so to them — their sympathy was given in the midnight 
assassins' bloody knife, in the torch of the merciless incendiary, 
in the ransacking hand of the rapacious robber. 

Upper Canada was not without its hero : a man named Wil- 
liam Lyon Mackenzie, the editor of a republican newspaper at 
Toronto, laid aside the pen and seized the sword ; he assembled 
about five or six hundred men at a place called Montgomerie's 
Tavern, four miles from the town, on the evening of the 4th of 
December, with the intention of entering in the night. As soon 
as this decided step was taken, they arrested every one on the 
roads, to prevent intelligence being carried to the Governor, Sir 
Francis Head. 

3* 



34 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



Colonel Moodie, a worthy veteran, and three of his friends, 
were unfortunately seen riding towards Toronto ; he was fired at 
from the Tavern ; fell, wounded in two places, and in a few hours 
was dead. The leader then harangued his followers, telling them 
that as blood had been shed there was now no retreat, and per- 
suading them to advance. The authorities were perfectly aware 
of the approaching danger ; but, confiding in the loyalty of the 
great majority of the inhabitants, all the troops had been sent to 
the lower province at the first news of the outbreak there. The 
insurgents, styling themselves a provincial convention, published 
proclamations, calling on the people to rise and free themselves ; 
in terms of blasphemous hypocrisy using the name of God to 
urge them to break God's law. 

Some loyal volunteers manned the city hall, and orders were 
given to the militia to assemble immediately. During the night 
nothing occurred but a slight skirmish, in which the insurgents 
were worsted. The next day the governor had mustered sufficient 
strength to attack, but first made an effort to bring the deluded 
people to reason without the loss of life. In the meantime his 
opponent had seized the mail, and imprisoned several inoffensive 
individuals. A number of horses were also pressed for his ser- 
vice, and a neighbor's house was burned. Flushed with these 
achievements, the attempts of the peace-makers were useless. 

On the 7th of December, Colonel McNab, with a party of mi- 
litia, marched from Toronto, and attacked the tavern ; the defend- 
ers, who were armed with rifles, made a short resistance and fled ; 
their leaders, as the governor quaintly describes it, in a state of 
the greatest agitation ran away. A good many prisoners were 
taken, but immediately afterwards contemptuously dismissed. 

The news of this rebellious movement had at once roused the 
indignation of the masses of the population : from ten to twelve 
thousand men immediately crowded to Toronto, to give their ser- 
vices to the law. The day after its termination a public notice 
informed them that there was no occasion for their services in that 
place, and the forces of the Eastern districts were allowed to turn 
towards Lower Canada. 

In the meantime, the ex-editor had escaped in disguise to Buf- 
falo, in the United States, where, by the story of his wrongs, and 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 35 

promises, he succeeded in collecting a force of sympathizing 
Americans, who plundered the state arsenals of cannon, arms, and 
ammunition, and took possession of Navy Island, a little above the 
Falls of Niagara, on the 13th of December. 

Supplied with stores and provisions from Buifalo, they threw 
up works, and threatened the opposite shore. Very few Cana- 
dians joined them. Proclamations from the Provisional Govern- 
ment were published from this place, offering a hundred dollars, 
and three hundred acres of land, in their future conquests, to 
every volunteer. Five hundred pounds were offered for the ap- 
prehension of the English Governor, the rebels stating that all 
the wealth and resources of the country would speedily be at their 
disposal. 

They opened a fire of artillery upon the houses of the peacea- 
ble inhabitants of the Canada shore, but without doing much in- 
jnry. A body of militia watched their movements defensively. 
On the 28th of December, the steamer Caroline, employed in 
conveying arms and supplies to Navy Island, was boarded by 
some loyalists, led by Lieutenant Drew, an officer of the Royal 
Navy, while moored to Fort Schlosser, on the American shore, 
and, after a bloody struggle, carried ; she was then set on fire, and 
suffered to drift over the great falls. It was an awful sight ; the 
blazing mass, floating slowly at first, but each moment increasing 
its pace, at length whirled rapidly along — all around, the red 
glare lighting up the gloomy forest, the broad waters, and the dark 
wintry night, as it rushed past to its terrible grave. 

Exaggerated versions of this attack caused great excitement in 
America, but the undoubted piratical occupation of the vessel 
convinced all well-thinking people of its necessity, and the United 
States government did not agitate the question of the invasion of 
territory. 

Soon afterwards, a sufficient force was collected to dislodge 
these invaders from Navy Island. A short cannonade from the 
north bank of the river, caused them to evacuate their position on 
the night of the 14th of January. When they landed on the shore 
of the United States, their leader was arrested and held to bail, 
and their arms taken possession of by the authorities. Other at- 
tempts were made by sympathizers, on Kingston and Amherst- 



36 HOCHELAGA; OR, 



burgh, but were at once defeated by the militia. Another party- 
having assembled at Point Pelee Island, in Lake Erie, the artil- 
lery and troops marched twenty miles over the ice to attack them, 
taking up a position which obliged them either to fight or surren- 
der. There was a sharp resistance, many of the soldiers were 
shot down in their close ranks, from behind the wooded coverts ; 
after some time they extended their files, to avoid the concentrated 
fire, and charged with the bayonet ; the island was then carried, 
and most of the defenders captured or slain. 

For all these forays, except in the first outbreak at Toronto, 
nearly all the marauders were citizens of the United States, and 
their conduct throughout was unredeemed by a single act of hu- 
manity, generosity, or courage. The Washington government, 
with good faith, tried to restrain these outrages, but the feeble 
executive was unequal to the task. Every night, houses were 
sacked and burned on the Canadian side. Amongst other depre- 
dations, a pillar raised to the memory of the brave Sir Isaac 
Brock, slain at the head of an English force in the last American 
war, was blown up with gunpowder, and much injured, by a man 
of the name of Lett, who was afterwards imprisoned for robbery 
in the United States. 

On the 30th of May following, a party of sympathizers plun- 
dered and burned a Canadian steamer, the Sir Robert Peel, while 
lying at Wells Island, belonging to the United States, in the river 
St. Lawrence. The leader was a man named Johnson, of great 
cunning and skill ; he managed to carry on his system of piracy 
and destruction for a considerable time, without interruption. For 
twenty-five miles below Kingston the Thousand Islands adorn 
the river ; they are nearly two thousand in number, rocky, 
wooded, without inhabitants, and varying in size from ten miles 
long to mere rocky tufts. In this watery labyrinth, where the 
thick forests overshadow the river, these marauders lurked ; they 
were provided with boats of wonderful swiftness, their expeditions 
were secret and sudden, and pursuit was vain. 

In the month of September, several French Canadians were 
tried by the usual forms of law, for the murder of a volunteer 
named Chartraud, which had been perpetrated with cold-blooded 
atrocity. The jury were exclusively countrymen of the accused, 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD, 37 

all others had been objected to in the challenge. The crime was 
scarcely denied, and was proved by the clearest evidence to every 
one but those with whom it lay to decide ; they gave the verdict, 
not guilty, and were in consequence entertained at public dinners 
and applauded for their patriotism, by the disaffected party. The 
common trial by jury was thus found to be quite unsuited to the 
emergency, and the disposal of the prisoners became a source of 
great embarrassment to the government. 

On the arrival of the high-mindedj but injudicious Earl of 
Durham (who had been sent out as plenipotentiary at the time of 
these difficulties), the question was solved by a general jail 
delivery, with some very few exceptions of those whose crimes 
were pre-eminently heinous. A proclamation was also issued, 
allowing those who had fled out of the country to return unmo- 
lested to their homes. 

Lord Durham's mission produced a statement of the condition 
of the country, and the sources of its difficulties. The spirit of 
the document is as follows : — " The root of the evil in Lower 
Canada is in the difference of races, arraying the people in enduring 
and bitter hostility against each other. The distinction in lan- 
guage, education, and religion, is not softened down by social inter- 
course, they seldom meet in society, each have their own banks 
and hotels. They inherit in an exaggerated degree the peculiar- 
ities of their origin, and the English take but little pains to con- 
ceal their contempt and intolerance for the customs and manners 
of their neighbors. Every political difference may be traced to 
the same source — the contest of the races. 

" A peculiarity in the formation of French Canadian society, 
is also a fruitful cause of mischief; from the means afforded by 
public foundations for attaining the higher branches of education, 
the professions are greatly overstocked. Two or three hundred 
young men, nearly all of humble birth, are annually turned out 
from the public schools ; averse to sinking back to the lowly 
occupations of their parents, a few become priests, the remainder 
lawyers and surgeons. With these every village swarms. Thus 
the best-educated people are generally connected by ties of blood, 
and intimacy, with the most ignorant inhabitants. In social 
intercourse the abler mind gains an influence over the mass, and 



38 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



thus the demagogue here becomes more powerful than in any 
other country. 

" The general inclination to jobbing, results in a perfect scram- 
ble in the House of Assembly for each to get as much as he can 
for his constituents and himself; this is carried to such an extent, 
that a great proportion of the schoolmasters appointed could 
neither read nor write. The judicial system appears to have 
been feeble and imperfect : except in the large towns, there was 
no public officer to whom any order could be directed." 

In the middle of October the state of Canada again became 
gloomy ; numbers of the French population bound themselves, 
by secret oaths and signs, into a dangerous organization ; the 
terrified loyalists crowded into the towns, or fled the country ; the 
thirst of blood and rapine was awakened on the American fron- 
tier, and the militia of English origin, dissatisfied with the par- 
don of the rebels who had inflicted such injuries on them, and 
been arrested by their prowess, showed much disinclination again 
to come forward in so unpromising a cause. 

A portion of the French inhabitants were again in arms on the 
3d of November ; their plan being to rise in Montreal, and 
destroy the troops while they were at church unarmed. By this 
time the government had devolved upon the gallant Sir John 
Colborne, whose wise precautions and admirable arrangements 
defeated their intentions. 

At Beauharnois the rebels attacked the house of Mr. Ellice, 
lately secretary to the governor, and carried him off"'; treating 
the ladies, however, with consideration and courtesy. On the 
same day a body of armed men concealed themselves near the 
Indian village of Caughrrawaga ; this news arrived while the 
warriors of the tribe were at church : they sallied out with the 
arms they could collect at the moment, and fell upon the rebels. 
These, surprised, scarcely resisted, and were tied with their own 
sashes and garters by the victors, who carried them in boats to 
Montreal jail. The Indian chief told the general, that, if neces- 
sary, he would bring him the scalp of every inhabitant in the 
neighborhood in twenty- four hours. 

These Indians are the remnant of the once powerful and fero- 
cious tribes of the Six Nations ; they are now domesticated, and 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 39 

cultivate the land. The chiefs are humane men, and enforce 
strict order; none of their prisoners were injured. 

About four thousand insurgents collected at Napierville, under 
the command of Doctor Robert Nelson and two others, who had 
all been included in the late amnesty. Some troops were marched 
on this point, but they found that the greater number of the insur- 
gents had disappeared, and were beyond pursuit. Some of them 
had been detached to open a communication with the United 
States ; these were met by a party of loyal volunteers, who 
bravely defeated them, drove them across the frontier, took several 
prisoners, a field piece, and three hundred stand of arms. The 
victors then threw themselves into the church at Odell Town, 
awaited the approach of Dr. Nelson and the rebels who had fled 
from Napierville, and repulsed them with the loss of more than a 
hundred men. 

Mr. Ellice, and several other loyalist prisoners, were carried 
by the rebels to Chateaugay, and well treated ; finally they were 
released, and the road pointed out to them by which to reach La 
Prairie. In this rising there was but little violence, or no cruel- 
ty, in the conduct of the Canadians. Dr. Robert Nelson's 
address to the people declared for independence, a republican 
government, the confiscation of the crown and church lands, and 
the possessions of the Canada Company, the abolition of seignorial 
rights, and of imprisonment for debt. 

In Upper Canada, five hundred American sympathizers landed 
at Prescott, on the St. Lawrence, with several pieces of cannon, 
on the evening of the 12th. Soon after, a party of English troops 
and militia attacked them, driving them into two strong houses 
and a stone windmill, where they defended themselves with great 
tenacity. They finally surrendered, however, and were carried 
prisoners to Kingston, to be tried by court-martial. 

Another body landed near Sandwich, in the western part of 
Upper Canada : they burned the Thanus steamboat, the barracks, 
and the militia-men within ; shot some inoffensive people, and 
murdered Dr. Hume, a military surgeon. He had mistaken 
them for some of the provincial militia, and fallen into their hands 
unarmed ; his body was thrown aside, hacked and mangled by 
axes and knives. Colonel Prince, on hearing of these atrocities, 



40 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



assembled a few militia-men, when the dastard assassins fled with 
but little resistance; their exasperated pursuers overtook, and 
slew many of them. 

A public meeting was held at New York, for the purpose of 
promoting the invasion of Canada; Dr. Wolfred Nelson and 
many other refugees attending it. At the same time the inhabit- 
ants of Oswego, an American town nearly opposite to Prescott, 
assembled ; and, through the commanding officer of the United 
States' army in that district, begged that consideration might be 
shown for the misguided men who, under false representations, 
had been beguiled into the invasion of a friendly country. 

Six of the Prescott brigands, and three of the assassins of Dr. 
Hume, were executed. The leader of the former was the first 
tried, and hanged ; his name was Von Schoultz, a Pole by birth, 
and merely a military adventurer. He had fought with skill and 
courage, and died bravely and without complaint, except of the 
false representations which had caused his ruin, by inducing him 
to join the godless cause. Doing all that lay in his nower to 
repair his error, he left his little property, about eight", hundred 
pounds, half to the Roman Catholic College at Kingston, and the 
remainder to the widows and orphans of the English soldiers and 
militia who had fallen in the combat where he was taken. 

Several people were also executed in consequence of the attack 
on Toronto. The most remarkable of these was a man named 
Lount, a native of the United States, but settled in Canada ; he 
had been a blacksmith, and had acquired considerable property, 
and influence among his neighbors. He became a member of 
the Provincial Parliament, where he formed intimacies with the 
most dangerous of the political agitators, and his more ardent 
nature soon led him to outstrip them all in the violence of 
sedition. 

His trial excited very great interest : doubt there was none, 
and the solemn sentence was pronounced. His daughter, a girl 
of no common attractions, had forced her way through the crowd, 
close to the judges' bench. With fixed eyes, and bloodless 
cheeks, she heard the fatal words which blighted earthly hope ; 
for a time they were but an empty voice, no meaning reached her 
stunned senses. Slowly, and with an increasing distinctness, the 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 41 

terrible reality stamped itself upon her soul. She was carried to 
her home, thence to her long home. 

Her father prayed earnestly, and acknowledged the justice of 
his punishment, when on the scaffold. In the last moment, he 
wondered that his child had not come to bid him farewell ; when 
he complained, he did not know that they were to meet so soon. 

Very great leniency was shown by the English Government; 
fifty or sixty persons were transported ; but nearly all the political 
offenders have since been pardoned. Occasionally there were 
instances of great apparent harshness. Where such numbers 
were implicated, over such an extent of country, at a great dis- 
tance from the fountain head, with several changes- of Governors, 
such cases could not be altogether avoided ; unfortunately, those 
really most guilty were not always the men made to expiate their 
offences. 

The loyal Canadians, who had suffered much during the insur- 
rection, were discontented and indignant at this tendency to 
clemency ; particularly with regard to the sympathizers, whom 
they looked on as assassins and robbers. 

Thus ended the Canadian rebellion ; the handywork of a few 
political knaves and desperate adventurers, acting on the passions 
and ignorance of a portion of a virtuous and peaceful people. 
Whatever may have been their wrongs, real or imaginary, such 
an attempt at redress was but a murderous folly. Without arms, 
money, or combination — with leaders only conspicuous by coward- 
ice and incapacity — with only sufficient spirit to prosecute their 
first success by an atrocious assassination — unsupported, dis- 
countenanced by the mass of the intelligent and wealthy even of 
their own race — opposed by the more warlike and energetic 
inhabitants of the Upper Province — they threw themselves madly 
into the field against the greatest of earthly powers ; their only 
allies, the robber refuse of a neighboring population. 

As a political movement, it was an egregious error ; as a 
military effort, it was below contempt : not that one would wish 
for a moment to depreciate the merits of the brave and judicious 
leaders, and the gallant troops, through whose instrumentality it 
was suppressed ; nor to speak with less pride and pleasure of 
those loyal men, who, from the chief justice of a province to the 



42 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



hardy woodsman — from the descendant of the earliest settler to the 
emigrant but just landed from his English home or Irish country 
village — had all, with ready heart and hand, fought for the crown 
and laws of our matchless country. 

The republican journals of France took up the cause of the 
rebels with fiery zeal. Undeterred by profound ignorance of the 
circumstances of the case, they spoke of "their brethren in blood 
and principle, the six hundred thousand oppressed French in 
Canada, who had risen eii masse against British tyranny, the 
motive and soul of which is inveterate hatred of all that is 
French." 

On the 7th of September, the Governor of Canada, Mr. Poulett 
Thompson, afterwards Lord Sydenham, communicated to the 
Parliament of the Upper Province a proposition from the English 
Government to unite the provinces, both to be represented equally 
in the new Legislature ; that they were to agree to a sufhcient 
civil list, and that the charge of the principal part of the debt of 
Upper Canada was to fall on the united province. This was 
agreed to, in both the Legislative Council and the House of 
Assembly. 

In the month of March following, after the union, a general 
election took place, which was favorable to the Government in its 
results. Lord Sydenham addressed the House, in a sound and 
conciliatory speecli, which was well received, though in the 
ensuing debate the difhcult question of " Responsible Government" 
was much dwelt upon. He did not live to see the effects of his 
measures. In September he fell from his horse, and soon after 
died in great torture ; continuing, however, to fulfil his duties 
with unflinching fortitude to the end. His last wish was, that 
his grave might be on the banks of the St. Lawrence. 

Sir Charles Bagot was the next Governor. He, to a certam 
extent, succeeded in the fusion of parties, admitting some repre- 
sentatives of each section into his ministry. He was shortly 
compelled, by ill health, to return to England, where he soon 
after died. 

In January, 1843, Sir Charles Metcalfe, now Lord Metcalfe, 
succeeded him. This distinguished officer was, for many years, 
in the service of the East India Company. In 1839 he was 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 43 

appointed Governor of Jamaica, where he had very great difficul- 
ties to contend with, but overcame them all ; gaining the admira- 
tion, love, and respect of the inhabitants, and the fullest approbation 
of the authorities at home. On the 28th of September, Sir Charles 
Metcalfe opened the third session of the united Legislature, in a 
speech expressing the greatest anxiety for improvements in the 
colony, and for a more efficient system of emigration. He 
announced the act of the Imperial Government, admitting Canada 
corn to England at a nominal duty, and recommended various 
local arrangements for consideration. An animated debate took 
place on the subject of the future seat of government, which was 
at length fixed at Montreal. 

Not long afterwards, the ministry insisted on a pledge that they 
were to be consulted on all appointments by the Governor ; this 
was at once denied, as limiting the prerogative of the crown, and 
implying a want of confidence. The Ministry, with one excep- 
tion, then resigned office ; and were supported in this step by a 
majority of the House of Assembly, who voted an address to the 
Governor, expressing their regret at what had occurred ; but, at 
the same time, disclaiming any wish to exact a stipulation from 
the head of the Government. The session was then abruptly 
brought to a conclusion, and the authorities at home expressed 
full approbation of the acts of the provincial Governor. In the 
spring of 1845, the House of Assembly was dissolved on these 
questions. The result of the general election was the return of a 
good working majority in support of the worthy Governor and 
the views of the English Government. During the anxious time 
of his collision with the late ministry, the general election, and 
the meeting of the Parliament, Sir Charles Metcalfe labored under 
intense bodily suffering, but with gallant constancy still continued 
in the discharge of his office. His successful zeal and wisdom 
were rewarded by a peerage, which, while conferring honor 
upon him, reflects it also not a little on the order to which he now 
belongs. Unfortunately for Canada, continued ill-health rendered 
his further stay in the country impossible ; in the end of the year 
1845 he returned to England, with the respect and personal 
regard of all those over whom he had ruled. 



44 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



The Earl Cathcart, Commander of the Forces in North 
America, has been appointed his successor. It will only be 
necessary for him to be equally efficient in his civil, as he 
has been in his military, rule, to gain the respect and esteem 
of all. 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 45 



CHAPTER IV. 

Quebec — Autumn 

Business, and making arrangements for my sojourn for the win- 
ter, occupied a short time after my arrival. At our first leisure, 
the captain and I started for a day of sight-seeing within the lim- 
its of the town, despite the almost tropical heat of the weather. 

Without entering into particulars about the public buildings, I 
may say, that the impression on our minds was, that they were 
exceedingly ugly. They are dispersed all over the town, as if 
ashamed of being seen in each other's company. There are 
five gates of the city in the fortifications ; from each of these, 
streets run towards the centre of the town, playing at cross pur- 
poses in a most ingenious manner, forming bends and angles in 
every conceivable variety of inconvenience. The streets are all 
narrow ; the shops not generally showy, though much improved 
of late ; the houses irregular. St. John's is the principal thorough- 
fare ; it is paved with large blocks of wood. 

There are several pleasant walks ; one all around the ramparts ; 
a platform, with a magnificent view, overlooking the river, and 
an esplanade to the land side. Wherever you can get your head 
high enough to look over the walls, you see around you a coun- 
try ;Jof almost unequalled beauty. The portion of the city within 
the defences is called the Upper Town, and contains the dwel- 
lings of the wealthier people, and the shops frequented by them. 
The great majority of this class are of English origin. The 
private houses are built more with a view to comfort and conve- 
nience, than external beauty, and few of them are of any pre- 
tension. The Lower Town consists principally of banks, mer- 
chants' offices, stores, and timber yards, with an amazing num- 
ber of small hotels and inns. 

The suburbs are nearly all built of wood, bui have churches, 



40 HOCHELAGA; OR, 



hospitals, and convents of more lasting material. The great mass 
of the people in these districts are French Canadians. The total 
population of this city is little short of forty thousand, being an 
increase of fifteen thousand in fifteen years. 

There are large Church of England and Roman Catholic ca- 
thedrals, and four churches of each of these persuasions, also two 
Presbyterian and two Wesleyan. There is a tolerable museum, 
and two good public libraries. The hotels are nothing to boast 
of; they are conducted on the American system, like boarding- 
houses ; the sleeping-rooms are bare and uncomfortable ; the fur- 
niture of mine consisted chiefly of my portmanteau. 

Besides those of the citadel, there are three barracks, and 
guards and sentries in all directions. After nightfall, you are 
met at every part of the ramparts with " Who goes there V 
which, however, you answer or not, as you feel disposed. The 
town is not lighted, with the exception of a few dim oil lamps in 
St. John's Street, for which reason, perhaps, it is, that the city 
police seem to prefer that beat ; and as they are gregariously 
disposed, you may always calculate on finding a sufficient num- 
ber of them there to apprehend the man who has knocked you 
down in some dark and distant part of the town, if you can only 
persuade him to wait till you fetch them. 

Most of the streets have wooden trottoirs, very pleasant to the 
feet ; those of St. John's are crowded like a fair for two or three 
hours in the afternoon, with people shopping and showing them- 
selves. Womankind of all ranks dress here very much as in 
England. The habitans, or French farmei's, usually wear a 
coarse, grey, home-made, cloth suit, with colored sashes tied 
round their waists, and often red and blue caps of thick worsted 
work. 

You are never asked for alms ; there is, apparently, no pov- 
erty ; man is dear, and bread cheap. No one who is able and 
willing to work need want, and the convents and charitable insti- 
tutions are very active in their benevolence to the sick and in- 
firm. In everything in this quaint old town, there is a curious 
mixture of English and French. You see over a corner house, 
"Cul de Sac Street;" on a sign-board, "Ignace Bougainville, 
chemist and druggist." In the shops, with English money, you 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 47 

pay a Frenchman for English goods ; the piano at the evening 
party of Mrs. What's-her-name, makes Dutch concert with the 
music of Madame Chose's soiree, in the next house. Sad to say, 
the two races do not blend : they are like oil and water ; the 
English the oil, being the richer, and at the top. The upper 
classes sometimes intermarry with those of different origin ; the 
lower very rarely. 

The greater energy of the Anglo-Saxon race tells in every- 
thing. They are gradually getting possession of the largest 
shops in the town, and the best farms in the country ; nearly all 
the trade is in their hands ; their numbers, assisted by immigra- 
tion, increase more rapidly. The distinguishing characteristic 
of the Englishman is discontent ; of the French, content ; the 
former always struggling to gain the class above him, the latter 
often subsiding into that below. The time is not very remote 
when, by the constant action of these laws, the masses of the 
weaker family will be but the hewers of wood and drawers of 
water for the stronger. 

These French Canadians have many virtues besides their fatal 
one of content ; they are honest, sober, hardy, kind to each other, 
courteous in their manners, and religious to superstition. They 
servH with loyalty and valor in the last American war ; the 
most brilliant achievement of the time was by a body of their 
militia at Chateaugay, numbering only three hundred men, under 
the gallant de Salaberry. General Hampton, with nearly twenty 
times their force, and a strong artillery, attacked them soon after 
he crossed the frontier, in his invasion of Lower Canada. He 
was repeatedly, and finally repulsed ; the defensive position was 
so well chosen and handled, that the assailants became confused 
in the woods, and fired upon each other. In the end, leaving a 
good many prisoners in the hands of the victors as memorials of 
their visit, they hastily evacuated the country. 

Efforts are now being made to extend education in Lower 
Canada ; but there is great objection to it among the haiitans, 
and indifference on the subject among their superiors. The 
people are wonderfully simple i^nd credulous. A few years ago, 
at a country town, an exhibition of the identical serpent which 



48 HOCHELAGA; OR, 



tempted Eve, raised no small contribution towards building a 
church, thus rather turning the tables on the mischievous reptile. 

Many of their expressions savor strongly of the national mari- 
time pursuits of their ancestors, the early settlers ; such as 
" embarquer " used as " to get into a conveyance ;" " baliser " a 
road, is to mark its direction through the snow with the tops of fir 
trees ; while the pronunciation even of the educated is peculiar, 
as, lor example, " bon swere " for " bon soir." A party of 
Canadian ladies were the other day admiring a painting in one 
of the churches ; a traveller from the United States, who was 
going about sight-seeing, was looking at it at the same time, and 
intruded himself somewhat abruptly on their conversation : after 
a few preliminary remarks, he observed, " That the Canadians 
do not speak the pure language like the French." " Alas, no," 
retorted one of the ladies, " we speak it much as the Americans 
do English." 

Since Canada became a portion of the English empire, many 
of the laws relating to property have been found harassing and 
unsuitable, and have been changed by the representatives of the 
people. The action of those on bankruptcy is different from that 
in England : by settlements on another person, the property is 
secured from the effects of a failure ; and this sometimH falls 
very injuriously and unjustly on the creditor. When a mer- 
chant starts in business he can settle ten thousand pounds on his 
wife, though at the time he may not possess half the money ; a 
year after, he fails, when his debts and credits may be very large. 
The settlement on his wife stands as the first claim, which proba- 
bly the creditor can meet, but no assets remain for the real debts ; 
— so that the advantages of the failure are like Sir Boyle Roche's 
reciprocity — all on one side. In spite of the occasional occur- 
rence of instances of this sort, the mercantile community of 
Quebec, as a body, hold a deservedly high position. 

There was a great panic a few years ago, when the alteration 
in the duties on Baltic timber took place, but time has shown that 
the trade of the St. Lawrence, in that most important branch, is 
not in the least injured by it ; indeed, on the contrary, that it has 
since largely increased : as fast as the trees can be cut down 
and shipped, our wonderful little island buys them all up. They 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 49 

now send us large quantities of flour and corn, and will soon be 
able to send us more, as the free-trade to England gives them the 
encouragement of very high prices ; a relaxation by ' our corn 
laws would, of course, deprive them of their trade as they at 
present enjoy it — in monopoly. 

The article they are most in want of in Canada, at present, is 
man — even the pauper ; when they get that raw material, they 
soon manufacture it into "comfortable goods." As our produc- 
tion of this commodity is so rapidly increasing, we should take 
pains to supply their markets better. Poor wanderers ! we 
should not speak lightly of their mournful lot — they find the 
struggle for their coarse food too fierce at home : farewell friends 
— farewell the land they still love, though it only gave them the 
cruel gift of life ! Trust me, the emigrant ship and the Cana- 
dian forest are not beds of roses. But there, with patient industry, 
they can always, in the end, work out prosperity. 

The citadel is the object of greatest interest in Quebec. The 
approach is up a steep hill forming the glacis. Threatened by 
guns in all directions, you must pass by a winding road through 
a detached fortification, and arrive at the gate into the body of 
the f§ace. The front is a high revetement of cut stone, with 
several embrasures for cannon, and numerous loopholes for mus- 
ke^i^ from the bomb-proof barracks within. There are certain 
ineffectual forms of jealousy as to admission, kept up ; my com- 
panion's uniform procured us immediate entrance. To the un- 
professional eye this place appears impregnable, and is, no doubt, 
of great strength, in spite of one or two weak points, which the 
captain pointed out to me in confidence. It may, hov/ever, be 
considered perfectly safe from any besieging force likely to be 
brought against it from the American continent, for many years 
to come. 

On the last day of the year 1775, the American general Mont- 
gomery was slain, and most of his followers shared his fate or 
wei;e' taken, in an attack on this stronghold : it was defended by 
General Carlton, the loyal inhabitants, and the crews of some 
English merchant ships ; with about one hundred regular troops 
and invalids. 

In the year 1838, Theller, Dodge, and three other state prisoq- 

PART 1, 4 



50 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



ers, from the Canadian rebellion, made their escape in a snowy- 
night from this citadel, while m charge of a battalion of the 
guards ; to the infinite chagrin of the officers, the two first got 
clear away from the town, the others were retaken, one with his 
leg broken by a fall from the walls. 

A short time after this day's expedition, I was highly pleased 
at finding on my table an invitation to a military ball, which was 
to take place at the barracks ; this offered the wished-for oppor- 
tunity of judging if the living beauties of Quebec were as wor- 
thy of admiration as the inanimate. From those I had already 
seen walking about, I was inclined to decide very favorably ; but 
there is no such place for forming an opinion on these matters as 
a ball-room. 

Having discovered that ten o'clock was the proper hour to go, 
I presented myself punctually at that time at the door of the bar- 
racks, and, with a crowd of other guests, walked up stairs. The 
rooms were ornamented with flags and stars of swords, bayonets 
and ramrods, arranged about the walls in a very martial manner ; 
but the passages had an air of rural simplicity, carpeted with 
fjreen baize and overhuno; with boughs of trees : little side rooms 
were turned into bowers, sofas supplying the places of rustic 
seats, and wax lights of sunshine. Though the passages did not 
appear to lead anywhere in particular, they seemed to be very 
much frequented by some of the couples, after the dances, and 
the bowers were never unoccupied. 

At one end of the ball-room was the regimental band, whence 
the lungs of some dozen or so of strong-built soldiers, assisted by 
the noisiest possible musical contrivances, thundered forth the 
quadrilles and waltzes. It was a very gay sight : about eighty 
dancers were going through a quadrille as I entered the room ; 
the greater number of the gentlemen were in their handsome 
uniforms of red, blue, and green ; good looking, with the light 
hair, fresh complexion, and free and honest bearing of English- 
men ; some were mere boys, having just joined from school, 
with very new coats and very stiff collars and manners. Then 
there were the Canadian gentlemen, with their white neckcloths 
and black clothes, generally smaller and darker than their Eng- 
lish fellow-subjects, and much more at home in the dance. 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 51 

On a range of sofas at one end of the room sat the mammas 
and chaperons, attended by the elderly gentlemen ; here also 
were the young ladies who were not dancing, but they were very 
few. I obtained a place in this groiip of lookers on, and found 
myself seated next an elderly young lady of rather an angular 
cast of mind and body ; as she did not dance much, she had 
ample opportunity to give me the names and " historiettes " of 
the company. She was one of those whose tastes had taken a 
literary turn, and she had read nearly all Byron's poems, with 
Shakspeare from beginning to end. On the strength of this, she 
lamented to me the intellectual inferiority of many of her fair 
fellow-citizens ; telling me in confidence that they did not read 
much, that, before their education was finished, they began re- 
ceiving visitors and going into society. She wondered how sen- 
sible men could find pleasure in the conversation of silly girls, 
who talk of nothing but their amusements. Ill natured thing ! 
As she spoke, a quadrille broke up, and the dancers passed us by, 
two and two, on their way to the favorite passage and the bowers. 
The gentlemen seemed to find great pleasure in the conversation, 
whatever it was about ; and no wonder, with such rich bright 
black eyes to help it out. 

The young ladies were nearly all clad in white muslin, very 
simply, but very tastefully ; I do not think I ever before saw so 
many so becomingly dressed, in proportion to their number ; the 
fashions were much the same as in England, perhaps a little older 
in date. 

They were generally very attractive, but it would have been 
difficult to single out any one with much higher claims to beauty 
than her companions. Most of them had dark eyes and hair, 
and complexions tinted with the burning summer sun ; their 
figures were light and graceful, their manners peculiarly win- 
ning. There is one thing in which the Canadian ladies certainly 
excel, that is, dancing ; I never saw one dance badly, and some 
of them are the best waltzers and polkistes I have ever seen in a 
ball-room. 

I see my friend the Captain coming ; on his right arm rests a 
little white glove with a little hand in it; and a pair of large, 
merry blue eyes, shaded by long, fair ringlets, are looking up 



52 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



into his grave face. He is so busy talking and listening, that he 
does not see me. Happy Captain, I wish I were young again ! 
" What a pretty girl that is with the fair ringlets," said I to my 
sour friend. " Some people think so," answered she ; " for my 
part, I think that silly smile is very tiresome." 

There is a waltz ! nearly every one joins. At what a pace 
they go ! It makes me giddy to look at them. The brass 
instruments in that terrible band scream louder than ever. The 
room is filled with flying clouds of white muslin — with scarlet 
and gold flashing through. Surely they must be growing tired 
now ; some of the young gentlemen with the stiflT collars are 
becoming nearly as red in the face as in the coat. Some 
breathless couples vanish among the bystanders ; others sink 
exhausted on the seats round the room. Now, there is a clearer 
stage, and we can distinguish the dancers better. There go the 
Captain and she of the fair ringlets ! Her tiny feet spin round so 
fast that they can hardly be seen, she seems not a feather weight 
upon them. There is a limit to the power of human beings. 
That storm of wind instruments cannot last much longer. 
Hush ! there is a calm. The whirlpool instantly subsides, and 
the stream glides away to the rural passage. 

I was soon walked off* from this gay scene to make a fourth at 
a rubber of whist, whence I was released to escort one of the 
chaperons to supper. While I was performing the necessary 
duties of attendance, the lady told me that there was to be a pic- 
nic on the morrow to the Chaudiere : — " Beautiful waterfall, large 
party, steamer sails from the wharf at eleven o'clock, happy to 
see you there." At this moment in came the Captain and fair 
ringlets : — " Dear child, don't dance too much to-night — hot 
rooms — pic-nic in the morning. My daughter, Sir." 

I am very glad she is going, I will certainly go, too, thought I. 
Whatever the Chaudiere may be, it will look the better for having 
those bright blue eyes sparkling beside it. 

About two o'clock the ball-room began to empty ; gentlemen 
with their pea-jackets on sauntered about the foot of the stair- 
case ; every now and then, two or three figures, with extra- 
ordinary head-dresses and long cloaks, would emerge from the 
ladies' waiting-room, take the arms of the pea-jackets, and walk 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 53 

away with them. There is the Captain, I know his walk. 
Who is that leaning on his arm ? The face is quite covered up 
in the snug bonnet, but as they pass out under the lamp into the 
street to join their party, I can see that two or three long, fair 
ringlets have strayed out over the cape of the cloak. 

At eleven o'clock the next day I joined the party, of some 
five-and-twenty people, on the wharf; soon after, we were taken 
up by a quaint little steamer, and going merrily with the tide up 
the great river. About seven miles from the town we landed on 
the south bank. A crowd of country carts were waiting for us ; 
we mounted, two in each, and placed some plethoric-looking 
baskets in an extra one. These conveyances were very simple ; 
unencumbered with springs, or any other unnecessary luxury, 
the seat, slung with ropes across the centre, held the passengers ; 
the driver, a little Canadian boy, sat on the shaft, to guide the 
stout little pony. 

It was a beautiful • September day ; a fresh breeze blew from 
the river, rustling cheerfully among the varied leaves of the 
trees by the road-side, and chasing the light clouds rapidly over 
our heads, while the landscape lay in alternate light and shade. 
The road was a very rough one ; every here and there crossing 
little streams by bridges made of loose planks or logs of timber, 
over which the active little ponies trotted without a false step. 
The country was rich, but carelessly cultivated for two miles, 
and then we entered the bush ; for about the same distance we 
continued through it till we arrived at the halting-place. 

The younger people of the expedition had managed to get the 
fastest ponies, and were far ahead of us ; the lady who had asked 
me was my travelling companion, and our united weight kept us 
last in the race. We found them all waiting patiently for our 
arrival, and the partnerships seemed much the same as at the ball 
the night before. It was the custom of the country : lucky Cap- 
tain that it should be so ! 

All now, old and young, scrambled down a steep and narrow 
path through the wood, making its echoes ring again with noise 
and laughter. At length the party, with a few exceptions, re-as- 
sembled at the foot of the Chaudiere Falls. 

The height is little more than a hundred feet, and at this time 



54 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



of the year there is but little water in the river ; but it is a sin- 
gularly beautiful scene : the rocks overhang and project, so that 
the misty stream plunges turbulently about among them, falling 
in a zig-zag course, half shrouded in spray, to the cauldron 
below, which is shut in by steep cliffs and banks. The waters 
foam and whirl about in the most extraordinary manner near the 
fall, but grow still and dark again as they approach the gorge 
between the hills, when they pass through to the level country. 
By this gap opens a distant view of the fields and forests of the 
rich banks of the St. Lawrence. Overhead, and wherever the 
grim rocks offer a resting-place, firs, pines and cedars cluster 
down to the very edge of the stream, as well as on the little 
rugged islands between the divisions of the shallow river above 
the falls ; while bright green mosses and lichen, with creepers 
hanging over the rough sides of the cliffs in fantastic drapery, 
complete the picture. 

When we had for some time gazed on the fair scene, we and 
the mosquitoes began to dine : the plethoric baskets yielded 
up their stores. A white deal box produced a dozen of bottles 
with long necks and leaded corks, which were cooled under a 
shady rock in the waters of the Chaudiere. There was a great 
deal of innocent mirth, and the fun usually arising from such 
things as scarcity of drinking-glasses and of knives and forks ; a 
servant tumbling while coming down the steep path, and break- 
ing half the plates ; and a lean dog darting off with a fine fowl ; 
accidents which are to be expected in pic-nics in all parts of the 
world. After dinner, groups wandered about in all directions ; 
the falls were examined in every possible point of view. These 
discursive rambles were far too difficult for the chaperons to 
undertake, so they wisely did not attempt it, and quietly rested 
sheltered under the shade of the rocks, till the long shadows of 
the pine trees on the deep pool told them it was time to muster 
their charge and return. Ii was some time before they were 
collected, and settled in the carts as before. 

We recrossed the St. Lawrence in row boats, walked to a 
friend's house in a beautiful little nook under a high headland, 
where everything was prepared for the party — tea, lights, fritters, 
and an empty room. No one appeared at all tired ; those who 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 55 

had walked the farthest in the woods danced the longest, and it 
was some time after midnight when we were rattling along the 
moonlit road to Quebec. 

Such was a day's amusement in Canada ; and I do not envy 
the man who could not be infected with the good-humor and inno- 
cent mirth of such kind and friendly companions, and moved by 
the beauty of such scenery. 

The ladies of Canada possess, in a great degree, that charm for 
which those of Ireland are so justly famed — the great trusting- 
ness and simplicity of manner, joined with an irreproachable 
purity ; the custom of the country allows them much greater 
freedom than their English sisters. They drive, ride, or walk 
with their partner of the night before, with no chaperon or guard 
but their own never-failing self-respect and innocence. They 
certainly are not so deeply read generally as some of our fair 
dames ; they enter very young into life, and live constantly in 
society afterwards, so that they have not much time for literary 
pursuits ; there is also difficulty in obtaining books, and the in- 
structors necessary for any very extensive acquirements. But 
they possess an indescribable charm of manner, rendering them, 
perhaps, quite as attractive as if their studies had been more pro- 
found. 

In this climate of extreme heat and cold, they very early arrive 
at their full beauty ; but it is less lasting than in our moist and 
temperate islands ; when thirty summers' suns and winters' frosts 
have fallen upon the cheek, the soft, smooth freshness of youth is 
no longer there. 

The officers of the army show themselves very sensible lo the 
attractions of the daughters of Canada ; great numbers marry in 
this country ; no less than four of one regiment have been made 
happy at Quebec within a year of the present time. The fair 
conquerors thus exercise a gentle retaliation on the descendants 
of those who overcame their forefathers. Nearly all the English 
merchants also have married in this country ; and, from what I 
perceive, those who still remain bachelors are very likely soon to 
follow their examples. 

From the limited numbers of the society, few of these little 
flirtations escape the vigilant eye of the public, and as fair an 



56 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



allowance of gossip goes on at Quebec as at any place of its size 
in the British dominions ; but it is seldom or never mischievous, 
or ill-meant, and, while observing with wonderful penetration all 
the little partialities, it treats them with the leniency their inno- 
cence deserves. 

Lake Beaufort, fifteen miles from Quebec, is spoken of as a 
scene of considerable beauty ; the angling is sufficiently good to 
offer a further inducement for a visit, and to a stranger, its being 
actually in the bush, makes it irresistible. One fine September 
morning, the Captain, the young Ensign, and I, started for its 
shores : the latter, in virtue of his youth, riding a liigh trotting 
horse, v/hile we were driven by a little weazened Canadian, in a 
caleche. The first five or six miles of the way was an excellent 
turnpike road, then gradually growing narrower, and the ruts 
wider. There were neat rows of houses on either side, with 
here and there a church, and wooden crosses erected in conspi- 
cuous places, hung round with rags, bands of straw, and other 
humble offerings, by the simple and religious Canadians. After 
some distance the farms became more scattered, and the inter- 
vening masses of bush more frequent, and of greater size. For 
the last few miles there was merely a track through the forest, 
where the trees had been cut down, leaving a space wide enough 
to drive through. We at length reached a large clearing ; be- 
yond it lay the lake, surrounded by undulating hills of rather a 
poor outline, clothed with the forest down to the water's edge, and, 
indeed, beyond it, for the quiet waves crept in among the bared 
and blackened roots of the lower trees, reflecting the distorted 
limbs upon their bosom. 

It is almost impossible to convey an idea of the gorgeous colors 
adorning the foliage of a Canadian autumn. The sombre pine, 
the glassy beech, the russet oak, the graceful ash, the lofty elm, 
each of their different hue ; but, far beyond all in beauty, the 
maple brightens up the dark mass with its broad leaf of richest 
crimson. For three weeks it remains in this lovely stage of 
decay ; after the hectic flush, it dies and falls. This tree is the 
emblem of the nationality of Canada ; as is the rose of England, 
the shamrock of Ireland, and the thistle of Scotland. 

The Ensign had galloped on to the farm-house where we were 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 57 

to stop ; we found him resting on a rude sofa, and complaining 
of a slight indisposition ; determined to remain indoors, as the 
heat of the sun was very great, and he felt weak and fatigued. 
We unwillingly left him behind, embarked in a crazy little boat, 
and pulled to a promising-looking bay, with a pebbly beach, on 
the opposite shore. 

The gentle morning breeze had ceased, the midday sun blazed 
fiercely down on the smooth, dead water, not a leaf stirred in the 
many-colored woods ; there was no bird or buzzing insect in the 
air, no living thing upon the land, and, what was worst of all, 
there were no trout in the lake ; at least, we could not catch any, 
though we tempted them with all the daintiest morsels that our 
fly-hooks could supply. Our arms ached from casting the lines, 
our eyes, from the dazzling glare of the reflected light ofl* the 
waters, and our ears, from the deep silence. So we put by our 
rods, skirting lazily along under the shade of the tall trees, till 
we were opposite our landing place, and then struck boldly across 
the lake, and reached the farm-house. 

Our companion was not better ; he felt chill and weak. We 
wrapped him up as well as we could, placed him in the caleche, 
and returned to Quebec. 

The next morning he was worse, feverish, and his spirits much 
depressed ; he ceased to talk, poor boy ! of the sleigh he was to 
have in the winter, the moose hunting, and the gaieties he and 
his companions looked forward to with so much pleasure — his 
conversation was of home. 

That night he was bled ; the day after he was no better, his 
ideas wandered a little, and his head was shaved ; the fever was 
very high, but no one was alarmed about him, he was so strong 
and robust. I went again in the evening to see him, but he did 
not quite know me. It was necessary to keep him quiet ; as he 
seemed inclined to sleep, we left him alone. In the next room 
five or six of his brother officers were assembled round the open 
window ; I joined them, and we sat talking for some time on va- 
rious subjects, the conversation gradually taking a more serious 
tone as the night advanced. 

Near midnight we were startled by the door suddenly opening ; 
the sick man came in, and walked close up to us. He had just 
4* 



58 HOCHELAGA; OR, 



risen from his bed ; his eyes were wild and wandering, his 
flushed face and bare head gave him a frightful appearance. " I 
am very ill," he said, " none of you think so, but I know I am 
dying." As we carried him back to his room every vein throb- 
bed, the fever raged through him. All the medical advice the 
town afforded was summoned, and he was watched with anxious 
care all night. They fancied he slept towards morning : he 
seemed much better ; it was said the crisis had passed ; he was 
weak, but quite tranquil. They thought he was out of danger, 
and his friends left him for a little space, some to rest, others to 
pursue the amusements of the day. 

At three o'clock that afternoon a military band was playing a 
lively overture on the esplanade close by ; well-filled carriages 
were ranged on the road outside ; two or three riding parties of 
ladies and gentlemen cantered about ; gay groups wandered to 
and fro on the fresh green turf; merry, laughing faces looked 
out of the windows of the houses on the animated scene ; the 
metal roofs and spires glittered in the bright, warm sunshine. 

At three o'clock that afternoon, on a small, iron-framed bed, 
in a dark, bare, barrack- room, thousands of miles away from his 
kindred, with a hospital nurse by his pillow, the young Ensign 
died. 

***** 

All the rides and drives about Quebec are very beautiful : of 
the six or seven different roads, it is hard to say which is the 
best to choose, as we found one evening when arranging a large 
riding-party for the following day ; but at length we fixed on that 
to Lake Calviere. At two o'clock on a fresh afternoon in Octo- 
ber, some five or six ladies and as many attendant squires assem- 
bled on the esplanade, variously mounted, from the English 
thorough-bred to the Canadian pony ; we passed out by St. Louis 
Gate at a merry trot, a slight shower having laid the dust, and 
softened the air. We crossed the bleak plains of Abraham, now 
a race-course, and continued for four or five miles through woods 
and small parks, with neat and comfortable country houses ; 
scarcely checking bit till we reached the top of the steep hill at 
Cape Rouge, where the road winds down the front of the bold 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 59 

headland to the low country beyond, on the banks of the St. Law- 
rence. 

As we descended, the glimpses of the great river, caught every 
now and then through the close and still brilliant foliage of the 
woods, were enchanting. Several large ships, with all sail set, 
were running down before the wind ; on the bank beyond, stood 
the picturesque cottages and shores of the hamlet of St. Nicholas ; 
the rustic bridge over the Chaudiere River filled up the back 
ground of the landscape. 

The younger people of the party paid but little attention to 
„his scene, but a great deal to each other. When at the bottom 
of the hill, away they went again as fast as before ; and, the road 
here becoming narrow, no more than two could ride abreast ; as 
the pace began to tell, the cavalcade was soon half a mile in 
length. 

Our way lay through country hamlets, winding up and down 
small hills, and crossing over rickety wooden bridges. Here and 
there above the little streams, stood a quaint old mill which the 
Seigneur in former times was bound to build for the use of the 
inhabitants on his estate. The people appeared very simple and 
ignorant ; the farms wretchedly managed ; the cattle poor ; and 
the instruments of husbandry the same as the rude forefathers of 
the hamlet used a hundred years ago. 

In every village there is a well, furnished with very primitive 
means for drawing water : a post is fixed in the ground close by, 
and on its top a cross-bar moves on a pivot ; from the light end 
of this bar hangs the bucket, by a long rod, the other end being 
heavy enough to outweigh and raise the bucket, when filled with 
water by forcing it down into the well with the long rod. 

The dress of the liahitans, in the country parts, is very homely ; 
they always wear the red or blue worsted cap ; their complexion 
is nearly as dark as that of the Indians, but they are a smaller 
and less active race. As we passed along, they turned out in 
crowds to stare stupidly at the unusual sight ; the lazy cattle 
moved farther away from the road ; fierce little dogs ran from 
the cottages, and, secure behind the high wooden fences, barked 
at us furiously ; trotting back contentedly when they saw us 
clear, as if they had done their duty. 



60 HOCHELAGA : OR, 



Our way soon became only a path through the " bush ;" we 
could see but a few yards before and behind : above, the sky ; 
on either side the wall of firs, pines, and cedars, with some few 
flowers and creepers which had outlived their companions of the 
summer. The sound of our horses' feet on the hard turf rang 
through the glades, disturbing nothing but the echoes. There 
is no place more still and lonely than the American forest. 

The woods were cleared away where we opened on Lake Cal- 
viere, a narrow sheet of water about a mile and a half long, with 
populous and cultivated shores ; every here and there, a spur of 
the dark forest, which the axe has still spared, stretches down to 
the water's edge, through some rough ravine, with little streams 
winding through its shades. Some neat cottages, with well-stored 
farm-yards, stand on the sloping hills. Herds of cattle grazed 
quietly on the rich grass by the margin of the lake, or stood in 
the shallow waters, cooling their limbs under the bright sun. 

A couple of little canoes, with two women in one, and a man 
in the other, lay on the calm lake under the shadow of a rocky 
knoll covered with firs and cedars, the occupants leisurely em- 
ployed in setting fishing lines. They were at the far side from 
us, and soft and faint over the smooth surface of the water, came 
their song, — " La Claire Fontaine," the national air of the Cana- 
dian French. 

All our party pulled up for a brief space, to enjoy this beauti- 
ful scene in silence ; but soon again the reins were slacked, and 
on, on, over the grass green lane by the edge of the lake, winding 
round the little bays and promontories, over the rude bridges, on, 
on they dashed, full of glee, laughing and chattering, some far 
ahead of the others, till they had doubled the end of the lake, and 
came cantering along towards home on the opposite shore. 
When we had encircled the lake we plunged again into the 
forest. I stopped for a minute to take another look at the lovely 
picture : beautiful lights and shades lay on the soft landscape ; 
and now, scarcely audible in the distance, the song of " La Claire 
Fontaine," came still from the little canoes. The gentle scene 
fixed itself on my mind, and remains stored up in the treasury 
of pleasant memories. But I must not loiter ; my horse's head 
is turned away, and we do our utmost to overtake the party. 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 61 

During the few closing weeks of the autumn I joined several 
excursions to other places in the neighborhood of Quebec, all well 
worthy of the visit at any time ; but, with kind and agreeable 
companions, beautiful weather, and the brilliant colors of the 
" fall " on the woods, they were seen to the greatest advantage. 
One of these excursions was to Lake Charles, away among the 
mountains, twenty miles from the town, and the largest and most 
picturesque lake in the neighborhood. There is only one log 
house on the banks, with a small farm; all around is " bush." 
It was very calm when we embarked upon this lake ; we pad- 
dled to the far end, and up a little river through the woods. The 
waters were very clear and deep : we could see the hard sand 
and colored pebbles, many feet beneath, and the black, gnarled 
roots of the trees projecting from the banks. Our conveyance 
was prepared by fastening together two canoes cut out of solid 
trees, placed side by side, by planks placed over the gunwales ; 
these little boats, when single, are very dangerous with unprac- 
tised passengers, but are impossible to upset when thus united. 

When we were returning the breeze freshened. The waves 
splashed up between the two canoes, soon nearly filling them 
with water, and thoroughly wetting us. To lighten them, half 
the party landed, and walked back to the farm house through 
the bush. It is difficult to form an idea of the fatigue of this 
walking in summer ; for two or three feet in depth the ground is 
covered with a network of broken branches and underwood, and, 
every few yards, the huge length of some fallen patriarch of 
the forest, so much decayed that it crumbles under foot, over- 
grown with fungus and creepers, in some parts almost mixed up 
with the rich mould and luxuriant vegetation of the ground. It 
took us an hour to get through a mile of this, and many shreds 
of the ladies' dresses were left hanging on the bushes. 

We dined at a little inn in the Indian village of Sorette ; on 
our return saw the pretty falls ; the young savages shooting with 
bows and arrows ; the squaws washing their embroidery ; and 
the hunters' trophies of the chace. The indefatigable young 
people managed to find two fiddlers, and danced till twelve 
o'clock, while an awful storm of lightning and rain kept us im- 



62 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



prisoned. After midnight the sky cleared, and a bright moon 
lighted us home over the streaming roads. 

There is pretty good shooting in the autumn, about the neigh- 
borhood of Quebec : snipe, woodcocks, partridge, and hares ; 
but it is usually necessary to go a long distance for the purpose, 
and success is at all times uncertain. In some low swampy 
grounds north-east of the town, twenty miles off, at Chateau 
Richer, snipe are occasionally found in great abundance. 

The numerous lakes and rivers round about afford very good 
trout fishing, but the fish are generally small. Salmon are 
plentiful in the Jacques Cartier River, twenty-five miles to the 
west, and in wonderful abundance at the Jacquenay. The mos- 
quitoes are a great drawback to the sport in this country — indeed, 
almost a prohibition : in June and July they torment dreadfully 
in country quarters, but never venture to invade the towns. 
There are few other noxious insects or animals of any kind with- 
in the bounds of Canadian civilisation. The Louparvier is some- 
times dangerous when suffering from hunger ; but is never seen 
except in the more distant settlements, where this animal and the 
wolves sometimes devour a stray sheep. The black bear is 
occasionally met with in the neighborhood. A young gentleman 
from Quebec, fishing in the Jacques Cartier, saw one the other 
day ; he was so terrified that he ran away, and did not consider 
himself safe till within the town walls ; while the bear, quite as 
much alarmed, ran off in the other direction. 

The moose deer is sometimes dangerous in summer ; not un- 
frequently they have been known to attack men, when their 
haunts have been intruded upon. An officer of engineers, en- 
gaged in drawing a boundary line some distance south of Que- 
bec, told me that a large moose deer attacked one of his workmen 
who was cutting down trees on the line. The man ran for 
shelter to where two trees stood together, leaving him just room 
to pass between ; the moose charged at him fiercely, striking its 
long powerful antlers against the trees, as he jumped back ; he 
wounded the assailant slightly with his axe, but this only made 
the animal more furious. Racing round to the other side, the 
moose charged at him again, and so on for two hours, till the 
woodman, exhausted by fatigue, was nearly ready to yield his 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 63 

life ; but the moose, too, was exhausted. The man, however, 
collected all his remaining strength for a desperate rush of his 
foe. He had barely strength to step aside yet this once, when, 
to his inexpressible joy, he saw the moose fastened by the antlers 
to the tree, from the force of the blow ; seizing the moment, the 
woodman sprang from his place of safety, and, with a blow of 
his axe, ham-strung the moose. The huge animal fell helpless 
on the ground, another gash of the weapon laid open his throat, 
and he was dead. The conqueror, wrought up to a pitch of 
savage fury by the protracted combat, threw himself on the 
carcase, fastened his lips to the wound, and drank the spouting 
blood. He fell into such a state of nervousness after this affair, 
that it became necessary to send him to a hospital, where he lay 
for many months in a pitiable state. 



64 HOCHELAGA; OR, 



CHAPTER V. 

Quebec — Winter. 

The first few days of the snow falling are very amusing to a 
stranger; the extraordinary costumes — the novelty of the sleighs, 
of every variety of shape and pattern : many of these are very 
handsome, ornamented with rich furs, and drawn by fine horses 
with showy harness, set off by high hoops, with silver bells on 
the saddles, rosettes of ribbon or glass, and streamers of colored 
horse-bair on the bridles ; while the gay chirping sound of the 
bells, and the nice crisp sound of the runners of the sleigh, 
through the new snow, have a very cheerful effect. 

Ladies' dress in winter does not undergo so great a transform- 
ation as that of men ; all wear muffs and boas, certainly, but 
their bonnets and pelisses are much like those worn in England. 
Men always wear fur caps, often with large flaps down over 
their cheeks, enormous pea-jackets or blanket-coats, fur gaunt- 
lets, and jack-boots, with india-rubber shoes over them, or moc- 
casins of moose-skin, or thick cloth boots, with high leggings. 
In the very cold weather, they often wear coats of buffalo, or 
other skins, and move about like some great wild animal, with 
nothing to be seen of the human form but a blue nose and a pair 
of red eyes. 

Although the temperature is usually kept very high within 
doors, by means of stove heat, people never seem to suffer by 
sudden transition to the extreme cold of the open air. I have 
often seen young ladies leave a hot room, where they had but 
just ceased waltzing, and walk quietly home, when the ther- 
mometer was below zero, with very little additional clothing on ; 
the great dryness of the air preserves them from danger. In the 
very low temperatures, a razor may be exposed all night to the 
air without contracting a stain of rust. Colds are much less 
frequent in winter than in summer. 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 65 

The winter markets at Quebec are very curious ; everything 
is frozen. Large pigs, with the peculiarly bare appearance 
which that animal presents when singed, stand in their natural 
position on their rigid limbs, or upright in corners, killed, per- 
haps, months before. Frozen masses of beef, sheep, deer, fowls, 
cod, haddock, and eels, long and stiff, like walking sticks, abound 
in the stalls. The farmers have a great advantage in this coun- 
try, in being able to fatten their stock during the abundance of 
the summer ; and, by killing them at the first cold weather, they 
keep frozen, to be disposed of at their pleasure during the winter. 
Milk is kept in the same manner, and sold by the pound, looking 
like lumps of white ice. 

The liabitans always travel over the ice of the rivers in pre- 
ference to the usual roads, as it is, of course, level, and they 
avoid turnpikes or bridge tolls in entering the town. They 
sometimes venture on, before the ice is sufficiently strong, and 
after it has become unsafe, when it breaks, and they and their 
horses are precipitated into the water ; the sleigh floats, the horse 
struggles and plunges, but can never regain the firm ice by his 
own efforts. The only plan, in this emergency, is to draw the 
reins tightly round his neck, till he is nearly choked, when he 
floats quietly on the surface ; he can then easily be dragged to a 
place of surer footing, and allowed to breathe again. The poor 
animals have great sagacity in judging of the fitness of the ice 
to bear them : they will trot fearlessly through a pool of water 
on its surface, out in the centre of the river, during a partial 
thaw, knowing that underneath it there is solid bearing ; but, in 
spring, they sometimes show great reluctance to venture upon 
ice apparently strong, which their instinct tells them is brittle and 
unsafe. 

In the general break up of the winter, in March, the snow 
roads become very disagreeable, and even dangerous ; the hard 
crust formed over deep drifts by the tracks of sleighs, and the 
severe frost, becomes weakened by the thaw and hollowed under- 
neath, so that the horse's feet often break through, and the animal 
sinks up to his shoulder, and probably falls, while the crust may 
still be strong enough to injure him. Sleighs continue to be 
used ; but, where the ground was not originally deep, it becomes 



66 HOCHELAGA; OR, 



bare in many places, and the runners grate over them with a 
most unpleasant sound, and with great weight of draught. 

During the winter, large quantities of ice and snow accumu- 
late on the roofs of the houses : in the thaw this falls off, with a 
rushing sound and great violence, sometimes causing very serious 
damage ; indeed, no year passes without loss of life or limb from 
it. Close by the walls is the safest place to walk at this time, as 
the avalanche shoots out from the sloping roof by the force of 
the fall. There are regulations to oblige householders to keep 
away these accumulations, but this wholesome law is not suffi- 
ciently enforced. 

I had seen the Falls of Montmorenci in the summer, and ad- 
mired them very much, but was glad to seize an opportunity of 
visiting them also in winter, which afforded itself in the shape of 
a party of some twenty people. We assembled at the house of 
one of the ladies, at twelve o'clock. There was a very gay 
muster of carioles ; some tandems, with showy robes and orna- 
mental harness ; handsome family conveyances ; snug little 
sleighs, very low and narrow, for two people ; and a neat turn- 
out with a pair of light-actioned horses abreast, with a smart little 
tiger standing on a step behind. 

My lot lay in one of the family conveyances, with a worthy 
elderly gentleman, who gave me a minute account of the state of 
municipal politics, and other interesting matters. We jogged 
leisurely along with a sedate old horse, and were passed by all 
the party before we reached our journey's end, nine miles from 
the town. They looked very happy and comfortable as they went 
by us, particularly the Captain, in his long, low sleigh, with the 
high-actioned horses ; for, by his side, muffled up in the warm 
snug robes, sat a lady, with whom he was so busily talking that 
he nearly upset us. 

It was one of those days peculiar to these climates, bright as 
midsummer, but very cold ; the air pure and exhilarating, like 
laughing gas ; everything seemed full of glee ; the horses bounded 
with pleasure, as they bore their light burthens over the clean, 
hard snow. But I wander from my friends in the long, low 
sleigh. Half-a-dozen bright reflections of the sun were dancing 
in the little lady's merry blue eyes ; her soft fresh cheek was 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 67 

flushed with the rapid motion through the keen air ; her little 
chin sunk in a boa of rich dark fur, the smiling red lips and 
white teeth just showed above it ; her arms were cosily lodged 
in a muff, resting on the bear-skin robe of the sleigh ; and a 
small bonnet of purple velvet sat coquettishly on her head, only 
half hiding the long, fair ringlets which clustered beneath it. 

We went by the river road, as it is called, over the ice ; the 
northern side of the St. Lawrence, and the channel between the 
island of Orleans and the left bank, is always frozen over in win- 
ter. By this bridge, the traffic from the fertile island and the 
Montmorenci district finds its way to Quebec. The ice is of 
great thickness and strength ; shells, from mortars of the largest 
size, have been thrown on it from a thousand yards' distance, 
and produced scarcely any impression. Sometimes the snow 
which has fallen on the ice, thaws, leaving large pools of water ; 
this surface freezes again, and becomes the road for travelling. 
Such had been the case the day we were there ; but a thaw had 
afterwards weakened the upper surface : our respectable old 
horse broke through, and splashed into the water. Not under- 
standing the state of the case, I made up my mind that we were 
going through to the river, and jumped out of the sleigh into the 
water; when the old horse and I, to our agreeable surprise, 
found the under ice interfering between us and the St. Lawrence. 

About an hour's drive took us to the Falls of Montmorenci : 
they are in the centre of a large semi-circular bay, hemmed in 
by lofty cliffs ; the waters descend over a perpendicular rock 
two hundred and fifty feet high, in an unbroken stream, into a 
shallow basin below. At this time of the year the bay is frozen 
over, and covered with deep snow ; the cliffs on all parts, but 
especially near the cataract, were hung over and adorned with 
magnificent giant icicles sparkling in the sunshine, reflecting all 
the prismatic colors. 

The waters foam and dash over as in summer ; but in every 
rock where there was a resting-place, half concealed by the spray, 
were huge lumps of ice in fantastic shapes, or soft fleecy folds 
of untainted snow. Near the foot of the fall a small rock stands 
in the river ; the spray collects and freezes on this in winter, 
accumulating daily, till it frequently reaches the height of eighty 



68 HOCHELAGA; OR, 



or a hundred feet, in a cone of solid ice ; on one side is the foam- 
ing basin of the fall, on the other the hard-frozen bay stretches 
out to the great river. 

One of the great amusements for visitors is, to climb up to the 
top of this cone, and slide down again on a tarboggin. They 
descend at an astonishing pace, keeping their course by steering 
with light touches of their hands ; the unskilful get ridiculous 
tumbles in attempting this feat : numbers of little Canadian boys 
are always in attendance, and generally accompany the stranger 
in his descent. A short distance to the right is another heap of 
ice, on a smaller scale, called the ladies' cone. The fair sliders 
seat themselves on the front of the tarboggin, with their feet rest- 
ing against the turned-up part of it : the gentlemen who guide 
them sit behind, and away they go, like lightning, not unfre- 
quently upsetting, and rolling down to the bottom. The little 
boys in attendance carry the tarboggin up again, the ladies and 
their cavaliers ascend, and continue the amusement sometimes for 
hours together. 

The party were in high glee, determined to enjoy themselves ; 
they tarbogginned, slid, and trudged about merrily in the deep 
dry snow. The servants spread out the buffalo robes, carpet 
fashion, on the snow, and arranged the plates of sandwiches, 
glasses, and bottles, on one side of the carioles, for a sideboard. 
When the young people had had enough of their amusements, 
they re-assembled, seated themselves on the buffalo robes, and the 
champagne and sandwiches went round. 

Though the thermometer was below zero, we did not feel the 
slightest unpleasant effect of cold ; there was no wind, and we 
were very warmly clad ; I have often felt more chilly in an 
English drawing-room. It is true that the ladies carried their 
sandwich or their glass of wine to their pretty lips in long fur 
gauntlets, through half-a-dozen folds of a boa, but their eyes 
sparkled the brighter, and their laugh sounded the merrier, in 
the cold brisk air, though their dresses sparkled with icicles, and 
the little fur boots were white with snow. There was a great 
deal of noise and merriment, with some singing, and much un- 
easiness on the part of the elders lest we should be too late for a 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 



large dinner party that evening, to which we were engaged : so 
we broke up our lively encampment, and drove home. 

Over the snowy plain of the river the bold headland of Quebec 
stood out magnificently. The metal spires and domes of the 
town shone in the red light of the setting sun ; the sharp, distinct 
line of the fortifications on the summit, with the flag of dear Old 
England over all ; and, through her wide dominion, her flag 
waves over no lovelier land. 

The hour of dinner, and the arrangements of the table, are the 
same as in England. Some of the official people and the wealthy 
merchants entertain very handsomely ; the cuisine and wines are 
good, and the markets supply a fair extent of luxuries. Formal 
dinners are seldom graced by the presence of the younger ladies ; 
they generally defer their appearance till tea time, in the draw- 
ing-room ; whei'e, joined by a few of the dancing gentlemen and 
some young officers, they get up a quadrille or a waltz ; music 
is not much cultivated, except as an assistant to the dancing. 
The French Canadians are very fond of cards ; round games are 
often introduced at their evening parties, and some even of the 
younger ladies can play a capital rubber of whist. Small plays, 
as in England, are also frequently introduced, to vary the amuse- 
ments. 

The young people often form large parties for snow shoeing 
excursions ; they walk eight or ten miles without fatigue, and 
the awkwardness and tumbles of those who are not accustomed 
to the exercise are a constant source of mirth. A man's snow 
shoe is about a yard long, by a little more than a foot wide in the 
centre ; to the front rather of an oval shape, behind narrowing 
to a point. The frame is a thin piece of ash, bent into this shape, 
and strung with light strips of moose-skin, in the manner of a 
racquet or battledoor, but of so close a net, that when pressed upon 
the softest snow it sinks but little into the surface. The foot is 
covered with a slipper or moccasin of moose leather, attached by 
the point to the snow shoe with straps of the same material, leav- 
ing the heel free to rise or fall with the motion of walking. The 
exercise is fatiguing to those who are not accustomed to it, but 
the elastic spring of the snow shoe lifts you along at a more 
rapid pace than the usual one of walking. The ladies' snow 



70 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



shoes are made much lighter and smaller than those for men, and 
usually gaily ornamented with tassels of colored worsted. Their 
moccasins are made to fit very smartly, and are decked with ela- 
borate embroidery of stained moose-hair and beads, the handy 
work of the Indian squaws. 

The party takes a straight line across country, up and down 
hill, through bush and brake, stepping, without effort, over the 
tops of tall fences scarcely seen above the deep drifts. Many of 
the ladies walk with great ease and more grace than would be 
thought possible with such appendages, their light weight scarce- 
ly making an impression on the smooth surface of the snow ; they 
slide gallantly down the steep hills, and run nimbly up them 
again, often faster than their unpractised cavaliers can follow 
them. 

Some years ago, three English ladies, with their husbands, 
officers of the garrison, walked off into the " bush" on snow 
shoes, made a cabin in the snow, encamped, passed two nights in 
complete Indian style, and were highly delighted with their ex- 
cursion. A worthy, matter-of-fact old gentleman, who lived near 
the place where they encamped, was greatly distressed after- 
wards to hear of the hardships they had gone through, and 
hastened to tell them that, had he known before that they were 
there, he could have given them all beds in his house. 

When the ice takes on the St. Lawrence, opposite to Quebec, 
forming a bridge across, there is always a grand jubilee ; thou- 
sands of people are seen sleighing, sliding, and skating about in 
all directions. This bridge forms about once in five years, 
generally two years in succession, not necessarily in the severest 
winters ; but if at low or high tide the weather be very calm, and 
the frost intense for that brief period, it takes across in glace ice, 
and usually remains solid till the beginning of May. Ice-boats 
come into play on these occasions : the boats are fixed on a tri- 
angular frame, with runners, like those of skates, at each corner; 
they are propelled by sails, sometimes at the rate of twenty miles 
an hour ; they can sail very close on a wind, and tack with great 
facility ', a pole, with a spike at the end, being made to act as a 
rudder. 

The canoe-men employed during the winter at the ferry, use 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 71 

their utmost endeavors to break up the ice when there is an 
appearance of its forming a bridge, as by it they are deprived of 
their occupation. In common winters, the river is full of huge 
fields of floating ice in the main channel, carried rapidly back- 
wards and forwards with the ebb and flow of the tide ; sometimes 
these are hundreds of acres in extent, and strong enough to sup- 
port a city, crashing against each other, as they move, with a roar 
like thunder. Crossing the river at this time appears very peril- 
ous, but is rarely or never attended with danger ; the passenger, 
wrapped up in buffalo robes, lies down in one end of a long canoe, 
formed of a solid piece of timber, worked with broad paddles by 
five or six men ; they push boldly out into the stream, twisting 
and turning through the labyrinth of ice till they reach a piece too 
large to circumnavigate ; they run against this, jump out on it, 
and start along, bawling the canoe after them over the floating 
bridge ; when it is past, the canoe is launched again, and so on 
till they reach the opposite shore. They are occasionally car- 
ried a long distance up or down the river with the tide, when 
the ice-fields are very numerous, and are two or three hours in 
crossing. 

From the great dryness of the climate, very little inconvenience 
is felt from any degree of cold when unaccompanied with wind ; 
but this, which, however, very rarely happens, is almost intole- 
rable. One Sunday during this winter, when the thermometer 
was at thirty degrees below zero, and a high wind blowing at the 
same time, the effect, in many respects, was not unlike that of 
intense heat ; the sky was very red about the setting sun, and 
deep blue elsewhere ; the earth and river were covered with 
a thin haze, and the tin cross and spires, and the new snow, shone 
with almost unnatural brightness : dogs went mad from the cold 
and want of water : metal exposed to the air blistered the hand as 
if it had come out of a fire : no one went out of doors but from 
necessity, and those who did, hurried along with their fur-gloved 
hands over their faces, as if to guard against an atmosphere in- 
fected with the plague ; for, as the icy wind touched the skin it 
scorched it like a blaze. But such a day as this occurs only once 
in many years. Within a mile of Quebec, I have known the 
thermometer down to thirty-eight degrees below zero, but there 



72 HOCHELAGA : OR, 



was no motion in the air, and the effect was quickening and 
exhilarating. 

A small fire, which consumed a couple of houses, took place 
on one of these extremely cold nights ; the struggle between the 
two powers was very curious, the flames raged with fury in the 
still air, but did not melt the hard, thick snow on the roof of the 
house, till it fell into the burning ruins. The water froze in the 
engines ; some hot water was then obtained to set them going 
again, and, as the stream hissed off the fiery rafters, the particles 
fell frozen into the flames below ; there was snow three feet deep 
outside the walls, while within everything was burning. 

For about three weeks after Christmas, immense numbers of 
little fish, about four inches in length, called tommycods, come 
up the St. Lawrence and St. Charles ; for the purpose of catch- 
ing these, long, narrow holes are cut in the ice, with comfortable 
wooden houses, well warmed by stoves, erected over them. Many 
merry parties are formed, to spend the evening fishing in these 
places ; benches are arranged on either side of the hole, with 
planks to keep the feet off the ice : a dozen or so of ladies and 
gentlemen occupy these seats, each with a short line, hook, and 
bait, lowered through the aperture below into the dark river. 
The poor little tommycods, attracted by the lights and air, assem- 
ble in myriads underneath, pounce eagerly on the bait, announce 
their presence by a very faint tug, and are transferred immedi- 
ately to the fashionable assembly above. Two or three Canadian 
boys attend to convey them from the hook to the basket, and to 
arrange invitations for more of them by putting on bait. As the 
fishing proceeds, sandwiches and hot negus are handed about, and 
songs and chat assist to pass the time away. Presently, plates 
of the dainty little fish, fried as soon as caught, are passed round 
as the reward of the piscatorial labors. The young people of the 
party vary the amusement by walking about in the bright moon- 
light, sliding over the patches of glace ice, and visiting other 
friends in neighboring cabins ; for, while the tommycod season 
lasts, there is quite a village of these little fishing houses on the 
river St. Charles. 

On New Year's-day, it is the custom for gentlemen to call on 
every one of their acquaintances, whether slightly or intimately 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 73 



known. It is very common too for strangers, at that time, to call 
with some friend who introduces them ; and many people who 
have been on cool terms during the year, meet on this occasion 
and become reconciled. The ladies of the house sit in state to 
receive the calls, and do the honors of the cake and liqueurs on the 
side table ; the visits are, of course, very short, — merely a shake 
of the hand, and compliments of the season, for some people have 
to pay, perhaps, a hundred in the day ; but it is a friendly cus- 
tom, and not unproductive of good feeling and kindness. 



PART r. 



74 HOCHELAGA; OR, 



CHAPTER VI. 

Moose Hunting 

In the end of February, the Captain and I started on a moose 
hunting expedition. We had arranged that four Indians should 
meet us at St. Anne's, about sixty miles from Quebec, to the 
north west, on the extreme verge of the inhabited districts. Jac- 
ques, the chief of the hunters, was to join us at Sorette, and guide 
us in our route. 

We travelled in a low curricle, drawn by a couple of stout 
liorses, tandem : a smaller sleigh with one hoi'se followed us, con- 
taining our guns and camp stores. Wrapped up in our blanket 
coats and buffalo skins, we felt but little inconvenience from the 
wind, which came sweeping up the road, bearing clouds of sleet 
and drift. Day dawned as we passed out through the silent sub- 
urb of St. Valliere ; the streets looked lonely and desolate, no one 
was yet stirring, and the snow during the night had obliterated 
all traces of the day before. As far as Sorette we had a broad, 
well-hardened track, but occasionally much encumbered with 
drifts ; an hour carried us there, and Jacques was in waiting to 
receive us. He immediately asked for something to drink, which 
we unwisely granted, for he soon grew very troublesome and 
loquacious, taking his place rather unsteadily in the luggage 
sleigh : whenever we stopped he demanded more liquor, but was 
refused ; he begged that some of his wages for the expedition 
might be advanced ; he assured us that he was a man of honor, 
and insinuated that we were by no means of a convivial tempe- 
rament. In a short time he managed, in spite of us, to become 
intoxicated to such a degree that we threatened to leave him be- 
hind ; but he had just sense enough left to lie down in the sleigh 
and sleep the greater part of the journey. Once these wretched 
creatures taste " firewater," thev have no restraint over them- 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. TS 

selves, and would give anything they possess, or risk their lives 
for more. 

The country we passed through for some distance on either 
side of the road was cleared, but beyond that lay everywhere " the 
bush." We crossed many streams half frozen over, where the 
waters rushed along through narrow channels in the ice, and 
tumbled over large transparent blocks accumulated at the bends. 
The white snow over the undulating ground, and the black lines 
of the hills and forests, gave the idea of an etching of the beauti- 
ful scene. In Summer, when decked in nature's varied coloring, 
this is a lovely land. 

The snow began to fall heavily and fast, and the roads became 
narrow and deep ; every here and there we met sleighs laden 
with wood or corn, driven by inhabitants ; when there is not 
room on the track to pass, they pull their horses to the very edge 
on their side ; the sleigh sinks down into the soft snow, which is 
five feet deep ; by hanging on with all their might, they keep it 
from upsetting. Then our driver forces his horses past — the 
sleighs come in contact — ours, the lighter of the two, is pushed 
off the track ; the horses slip into the soft snow, plunge out again, 
and, with loud sacres and marchez doncs from the driver, and 
struggling and balancing on our part, we pass by. Sometimes, 
however, the collision ends by both conveyances and their con- 
tents being upset and plunged into the snow, where we, wrapped 
up in our robes, and convulsed with laughter, remain quite as 
inactive as the sacks of corn in the opposing sleigh. 

About nightfliU we arrived at a miserable hamlet, some ten 
miles from our journey's end, and stopped at the George Inn — a 
log hut — for some little time, to rest our tired horses. There was 
only a bar, and a sleeping room for the family, in this establish- 
ment. The proprietor was a Londoner, and spoke as if he had 
known belter days. He told us that he was living comfortably, 
and was quite contented ; that he had not been beyond the town- 
ship for years, but occasionally got a Quebec paper, which gave 
him news of the great world. As he showed us the clearing, of 
a few hundred acres, with some dozen wretched log-houses upon 
it from the window, the rapid progress of his adopted residence 
seemed to be a great source of pride to him. " For," said he, 



76 HOCHELAGA : OR, 



" when I came to this place thirteen years ago, it was quite in 
its infancy/' 

Darkness added very much to the difficulties of the journey ; 
but we were on an excursion for amusement, and wisely made 
even our troubles minister to the purpose. We descended by a 
narrow, winding road, to the ice bridge over the river St. Anne ; 
on one side was a high cliff, whose top we could not see, covered 
with bare firs and huge icicles; below was much the same, 
where we could not see the bottom. When we were on the 
steepest part, the wheeler found the weight pressing on him from 
behind, inconvenient, so he sat down and proceeded in a slide. 
The leader, alarmed at this novelty, plunged forward into the 
darkness, and disappeared over the cliff at one side of a huge pine 
tree, while we, the sleigh, and the wheeler, twisted up into an 
apparently inextricable mass of confusion, remained on the other; 
the traces and reins still connecting us with the invisible leader, 
as we judged by violent jerks at the cariole, simultaneously with 
the crashing of branches in front. This time we laughed less, 
and did more, than on the other occasions. As soon as we crept 
from under the capsized vehicle, we tried to fish out the leader 
from the darkness into which he had fallen. Both the drivers, 
and Jacques, who by this time had slept himself sober, came to 
our assistance, and, after a good deal of hauling and whipping, 
and the use of some very strong language by the Canadian 
drivers, we succeeded in getting the animal on the solid road 
again. He had fallen across the strong branches of a pine tree, 
and for several minutes remained in this perilous situation, 
partly supported by the traces, and kicking furiously all the 
time ; he was too much exhausted by this to be put to again, so 
we drove him on in front, and had to help him out of snow- 
drifts half-a-dozen times in the course of the remainder of our 
journey. 

At length the other horses also gave in ; it was as dark 
as pitch, and we had already travelled so far that we began to 
have a vague idea we had lost our way, in which our guide, 
the half-sobered Indian, seemed to participate. He, however, set 
to hallooing lustily ; and, to our great joy we saw, in about 
a minute afterwards, a light in a house only a few yards off, 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 77 

which Jacques announced to be the place of our destination for 
the night. 

Very cold and tired, I impatiently got out of the sleigh, and 
made a rush towards the beacon, but at the first step went up to 
my neck in the snow ; the weary leader, thinking I had found 
the right road, plunged in after me — to my great terror — and in 
this predicament we both remained till the Indians from the house 
came with lights, and hauled us out. 

Monsieur Boivin was the proprietor of the house where we were 
to pass the night. Its appearance was not favorable, and we found 
it did not improve on acquaintance. There was only one room, 
about thirty feet square, with two beds in the far corner and a 
stove in the middle, which kept it at oven heat. Our party con- 
sisted of the lady of the house, and three daughters, four men of 
the family, the five Indians, half-a-dozen dogs, and ourselves. 
While the men poisoned the confined air with each a pipe of filthy 
tobacco, the women .cooked some brown unsightly mixture in an 
earthen pan on the stove, from whence arose stifling fumes of 
garlic. While a number of men such as these were smoking, the 
floor was naturally not in a very tempting state to lie down upon, 
but, having got some tea and biscuits out of our stores, we dis- 
covered two small islands in the sea of abominable expectorations, 
where we spread our buffalo robes, and settled ourselves for the 
night. 

The dogs judiciously followed our example ; and, finding the 
soft fur a very pleasant bed, lay down along with us. We 
kicked and drove them off* as long as we were able, but it was no 
use, they were back again the next minute. Their perseverance 
prevailed, and a huge wolf-like one, and I, made a night of it. 

When the men were snoring on the filthy floor, and the lights 
put out, the ladies, under cover of the darkness, took possession 
of the beds. I had the foot of the house-clock for my pillow, 
which, unfortunately for me, had been lately repaired, and ticked 
with the rudest health. This at my ears, the dreadful smells, 
and the baking-heat of the stove, kept me pretty well awake all 
night, and I fear I disturbed my wolf-like bed-fellow very much 
by my uneasiness. I believe, however, I had a sort of dream of 
the room being filled with house-clocks smacking and spitting, 



78 HOCHELAGA; OR, 



and a huge Indian ticking at my head. As for the captain, he 
slept in a most soldier-like manner. 

At earliest dawn the house was all astir ; the ladies re-appeared 
on the stage, the Indians were packing our camp-kettles and pro- 
visions on their tarboggins, and we were eating our breakfast. I 
may as well say that the tarboggin is a light sleigh, made 
of plank, scarcely thicker than the bark of a tree, bent up 
in front like a prow ; this, with a moderate burthen, is dragged 
by the Indians over the snow by a rope to the shoulder, with but 
little effort. 

These tasks were soon accomplished ; and, accompanied by 
the five horrible Indians and the pack of miserable dogs, we 
started. These Indians are a remnant of the Huron tribe, settled 
at Sorette, where they have a church, houses, and farms. They 
live, during the winter, by hunting, and such excursions as our 
own, for which they charge exorbitantly ; in the summer they 
labor a little in their fields, make snow-shoes and moccasins, and 
embroider with beads. They are not of pure blood : I believe 
there is only one of the tribe who is not partly of French Cana- 
dian extraction. It is a sadly degenerated race, cringing, covet- 
ous, drunken, dissipated, gluttonous, and filthy. They are even 
losing their skill in the chase, the only advantage they possess. 
But little darker than the Canadians in complexion, their hair is 
much coarser, and they have a savage and sensual expression 
peculiar to themselves. Their dress is the blanket coat and 
colored sash, blanket leggings, moccasins of moose-skin, and a 
red or blue woollen cap. They take no other clotliing with them 
into the bush in the coldest weather. With their snow-shoes 
loosely tied on, and their tarboggin dragged from over the shoul- 
der, they can get over a long journey without fatigue. 

Our blankets, buffalo robes, and other necessaries, made up 
rather a heavy burthen ; they were left with three of the Indians, 
to be drawn leisurely after us, while we, with the others, went 
ahead in our snow shoes. We were very slightly clad for the 
journey ; the exercise keeps the traveller quite warm enough in 
any weather. 

It was a glorious morning ! The sun shone out brightly as in 
midsummer, but clear and cold. Over the open space of the 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 79 

little settlement where we had passed the night, the new white 
snow lay like silver sand, glittering radiantly ; from tlie whid of 
the day before it was in tiny waves, like the sea shore when the 
rippling waters of the ebb-tide have left it dry. The morning 
was perfectly still, the snow of yesterday lay thick and heavy on 
the firs and pines, unstirred by the slightest motion of the wind, 
and there was not a cloud in the sky. Though one of the ex- 
tremely cold days, there was nothing painful in the sensations ; 
the air was thin and pure as on a mountain top : everything was 
bright and cheerful : the fresh snow, crisped by the severe frost, 
supported the snow shoe on its very surface, while we felt light 
and vigorous, and capable of unusual exertion. 

There was no track, but the Indians steered for a huge old 
pine tree at the end of the clearing, on the verge of the forest ; 
here all signs of human industry ended. We stopped for a few 
minutes under its branches to look behind us on the abodes of 
men. " Now we are in the ' bush,' " said our guide. From 
thence to the north pole lay the desert. 

We strode on for several hours under the pine trees, on level 
ground, at length stopping to breathe at the foot of a hill. The 
Indians trampled down the snow for a resting place, made a seat 
of sapins — the tops of fir trees, and brought us deliciously cold 
and pure water from a stream close by ; we heard its murmur 
distinctly in the silence of the woods, but could not see the little 
brook for some time ; it was bridged over with ice and snow five 
feet deep, and only here and there, where there was a miniature 
cascade, was there an opening. 

At noon we started again ; three more hours of walking over 
an undulating country brought us to a small river, where we de- 
termined to pass the night. Latterly our progress had been very 
fatiguing, the underwood was thick and rose over the five feet of 
snow ; being unpractised, we tripped occasionally over the 
branches and tumbled, — the struggle up again was no easy 
matter. 

In making a cabin for the night, the Indians took off their snow 
shoes and used them to shovel out a chamber in the snow, about 
twenty feet in length by twelve in width ; throwing the contents 
up so as to build a wall round it. They next cut some young 



80 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



fir trees and arranged them leaning against each other as rafters, 
to form a roof; cross branches were laid over these, and a ceil- 
ing of birch bark, which is here like broad pieces of leather, com- 
pleted this part. An opening on one side was left for a door, and 
the centre of the roof, uncovered, was the chimney ; two large 
fresh logs were laid across the middle of the cabin, on which was 
lighted a pile of dry wood. The arrangement of the inside was 
a line of pillows, formed of snow, at both ends of the hut; our 
feet were to be close to the fire, half the party lying on each side 
of it. Sapins made up a soft couch on the cold floor, and buffalo 
robes were our bed clothes. 

When these luxurious arrangements were finished, we went to 
the river, carrying an axe, fishing lines, and bait ; cleared a part 
of the ice with our snow shoes, and with the axe cut a hole in it, 
about a foot square, down to the water. The admission of the 
fresh air evidently gave the unfortunate trout an appetite, for, as 
fast as the line was put down, one of them pounced on the bait 
and found his way to our basket, where he was immediately 
frozen to death ; when he reappeared, to be cooked, he was as 
hard as if he had been salted and packed for six months. We 
soon got tired of this diversion, and returned to our lodging. 

Indians had cut firewood for the night, and were busy piling it 
at the door ; a large kettle, hung from the rafters by a rope made 
of green branches, and filled with a savoury mess of pork, peas, 
and biscuit, was boiling over the fire ; a smaller one sang merrily 
by its side, with a fragrant brew of tea. The cabin was warm, 
and, with the robes spread out, looked very comfortable : loops 
of birch-bark in the clefts of two sticks stuck in the snow served 
as candlesticks : our valuables, including the brandy bottle, were 
placed in a leathern bag at the head of our sofa, and carefully 
locked up. 

We ate a few of the trout, and tasted the Indians' mess, but 
our main dependence was on one of the cases of preserved meats, 
of which we had laid in a stock for the expedition. We had 
boiled it carefully in water according to the directions, and one 
of the Indians opened it with an axe ; we were ravenously 
hungry, each armed with a plate for the attack, but, to our great 
disappointment, such odors issued from it that even the Indians 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 81 

threw it away in disgust. We richly deserved this, for attempt- 
ing such luxury in the "hush." 

The Indians all knelt in prayer for some time, before going to 
sleep ; each producing his rosary, and repeating his devotions in 
a low, monotonous voice. The unfortunate dogs had not been 
allowed to eat anything — to make them more savage against the 
moose ; or to come near the fire, perhaps, to make them hotter in 
the chase ; they all kept prowling about outside in the snow, 
occasionally putting their heads into the cabin for a moment, with 
a longing look. When, during the Indians' devotions, they found 
so long a silence, they began stealthily to creep in, one by one, 
and seat themselves round the fire. One, unluckily, touched the 
heel of the apparently most devout among the Indians, who 
turned round, highly enraged, to eject the intruder ; he had a 
short pipe in his teeth, while he showered a volley of French 
oaths at the dog, and kicked him out ; when this was accom- 
plished he took a long pull at his pipe, and resumed his devotions. 

About midnight I awoke, fancying that some strong hand was 
grasping my shoulders : — it was the cold. The fire blazed away 
brightly, so close to our feet that it singed pur robes and blankets ; 
but, at our heads, diluted spirits froze into a solid mass. We 
were very warmly clothed, and packed up for the night, but I 
never knew what cold was till then. 

As I lay awake, I stared up at the sky through the open roof; 
the moon seemed larger and her light purer, than I had ever be- 
fore seen ; her pale, solemn face looked down on the frozen earth, 
through the profound stillness of the night, like a presence. The 
bright stars stood out boldly in the sky, throwing back their lus- 
tre into the infinite space, beyond where man's feeble vision is 
lost in boundless depths. Overhead, the bare branches of the 
forest trees wove their delicate tracery against the blue vault, 
softening but not impeding the view of its glorious illumination. 
It is impossible to describe the magnificence of these winter nights 
in Canada. 

The cold was, indeed, intense ; my hand, exposed for a mo- 
ment in wrapping the buffalo robe closer round me, was seized 
as in a vice, and chilled in a moment. I wrapped a blanket round 
my head, and my breath froze on it into a solid lump of ice. 
5* 



82 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



The flame of the fire burnt blue in the frosty air ; and, though 
it was still very powerful, the snow not a foot away from it was 
crisp and hard. 

Soon after daybreak we were on our way again. This day's 
journey was through a rugged and mountainous country ; in 
many places the way was so steep that we had to drag ourselves 
up the sharp hills, by the branches and underwood. When we 
came to a descent, we sat down on the snow shoes, holding them 
together behind, and skated along with great velocity, often meet- 
ing some obstruction in the way, and rolling over and over to the 
bottom ; there we lay buried in the snow, till, with ludicrous 
difficulty, we struggled out again. 

About once in an hour we stopped by some turbulent little 
stream, scarcely seen in the snow, to drink and rest for a brief 
space. The Indians took it in turn to go in front and " make 
track," this being the most fatiguing province ; they all steered 
with unerring accuracy, apparently by an instinct ; through 
the sameness of the forest, they, only, can trace the difficult 
route. 

After about eighteen miles' journey, we struck on another 
frozen river ; the guide turned down its bed about a hundred 
yards to the west, then threw his burthen aside and told us we 
were at the place for stopping that night, and within two miles 
of the " Ravage," or moose yard, of which we were in search. 

These animals sometimes remain in the same " ravage " for 
weeks together, till they have completely bared the trees of bark 
and young branches, and then they only move away far enough 
to obtain a fresh supply ; from this lazy life they become very fat 
at this time of the year. Our cabin was formed, and the evening 
passed much as the preceding one, but that the cold was not so 
severe. Having worn off the novelty of the situation, we com- 
posed ourselves quietly to read for some time, and after that slept 
very soundly. 

The morning was close and lowering, and the snow began to 
fall thickly when we started for the " ravage," with four of the 
Indians and all the dogs ; the fresh falling snow on our snow 
shoes made the walking very heavy ; it was al.so shaken down 
upon us from the branches above, when we happened to touch 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 83 



them, and, soon meicing, wetted us. The temperature being un- 
usually high that day, in a short time the locks of our guns were 
the only things dry about us. The excitement, however, kept us 
warm, for we saw occasionally the deep track of the moose in 
the snow, and the marks of their teeth on the bark and branches 
of the trees. These symptoms became more apparent as we 
approached the bottom of a high, steep hill ; the dogs were sent 
on ahead, and in a few minutes all gave tongue furiously, in 
every variety of currish yelp. By this time the snow had 
ceased falling, and we wei'e able to see some distance in front. 

We pressed on rapidly over the brow of the hill, in the direc- 
tion of the dogs, and came upon the fresh track of several moose. 
In my eagerness to get forward, I stumbled repeatedly, tripped 
by the abominable snow shoes, and had great difficulty in keeping 
up with the Indians, who, though also violently excited, went on 
quite at their ease. The dogs were at a stand still, and, as we 
emerged from a thick part of the wood, we saw them surround- 
ing three large moose, barking viciously, but not daring to ap- 
proach within reach of their hoofs or antlers. When the deer 
saw us, they bolted away, plunging heavily through the deep 
snow, slowly and with great difficulty ; at every step sinking to 
the shoulder, the curs still at their heels as near as they cotfld 
venture. They all broke in different directions ; the captain, pur- 
sued one, I another, and one of the Indians the third : at firs't they 
beat us in speed ; for a few hundred yards mine kept stoutly on, 
but his track became wider and more irregular, and large drops 
of blood on the pure, fresh snow showed that the poor animal was », 

wounded by the hard, icy crust of the old fall. We were press- 
ing down hill through very thick " bush " and could not see him, 
but his panting and crashing through the underwood were plainly 
heard. In several places the snow was deeply ploughed up, 
where he had fallen from exhaustion, but again struggled gallantly 
out, and made another effort for life. 

On, on, the branches smash and rattle, but, just ahead of us, 
the panting is louder and closer, the track red with blood ; the 
hungry dogs howl and yell almost under our feet. On, on, 
through the deep snow, among the rugged rocks and the tall pines 
we hasten, breathless and eager. Swinging round a close thicket, 



S4 HOCHELAGA; OR, 



we open in a swampy valley with a few patriarchal trees rising 
from it, bare of branches to a hundred feet in height ; in the 
centre stands the moose, facing us ; his failing limbs refuse to 
carry him any farther through the choking drifts : the dogs press 
upon him : whenever his proud head turns, they fly away yell- 
ing with terror, but with grinning teeth and hungry eyes rush at 
him from behind. 

He v/as a noble brute, standing at least seven feet high ; his 
large, dark eye was fixed, I fancied, almost imploringly, upon me, 
as I approached. He made no further effort to escape, or resist : 
I fired, and the ball struck him in the chest. The wound roused 
him ; infuriated by the pain, he raised his huge bulk out of the 
snow, and plunged towards me. Had I tried to run away, the 
snow shoes would have tripped me up, to a certainty, so I thought 
it wiser to stand still ; his strength was plainly failing, and I 
knew he could not reach me. I fired the second barrel, he stop- 
ped, and staggered, stretched out his neck, the blood gushed in a 
stream from his mouth, his tongue protruded, then slowly, as if 
lying down to rest, he fell over into the snow. The dogs would 
not yet touch him ; nor would even the Indians ; they said that 
this was the most dangerous time — he might struggle yet ; soliwe 
watched cautiously till the large dark eye grew dim and glazed, 
and the sinewy limbs were stiffened out in death ; then we ap- 
proached and stood over our fallen foe. 

When the excitement which had touched the savage chord of 
love of destruction, to be found in every nature, was overj.iJ, felt 
ashamed, guilty, self-condemned, like a murderer : the snow de- 
filed with the red stain ; the meek eye, a few moments before 
bright with healthy life, now a mere filmy ball ; the vile dogs, 
that had not dared to touch him while alive, licked up the stream 
of blood, and fastened on his heels. I was thoroughly disgusted 
with myself and the tame and cruel sport. 

The Indians knocked down a decayed tree, rubbed up some of 
the dry bark in their hands, applied a match to it, and in a few 
minutes made a splendid fire close by the dead moose ; a small 
space was trampled down, the sapins laid as usual, for a seat, 
from whence I inspected the skinning and cutting up of the car- 
case ; a part of the proceeding which occupied nearly two hours. 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 85 



The hide and the most valuable parts were packed on the 
tarboggins^ and the remnant of the noble brute was left for the 
wolves : we then returned to the cabin. 

The Indians were very anxious that I should go in pursuit of 
the )hira moose, which I positively declined, partly because I was 
very tired, and partly because I would have gone twice the dis- 
tance to avoid such another murder. The Captain arrived in about 
an hour ; he had also killed his moose, but after a much longer 
chase. The kidney and marrow were cooked for supper, and the 
remainder, except what the dogs got, was buried in the snow ; 
the craven brutes ate and fought till they could no longer growl, 
and then laid down torpidly outside to sleep. 

That night there was a thaw ; our snow roof melted, and the 
water kept dropping on us till we were thoroughly wet and un- 
comfortable. In the place where we were encamped there were 
a great number of birch and pine trees ; at this time of the year 
the former are covered with loose bark, hanging in shreds over 
trunk and branches : this is highly inflammable, burning with a 
bright red flame, and a smell like camphine ; the Indians, by roll- 
ing it up tightly, make torches, which give a strong and lasting 
light. We determined on an illumination with these materials, 
fd'celebrate the events of the day ; and, when the night fell, dark 
as .pitch, we seized torches, made the Indians do the same, and 
stai?fed off in different directions through the wood, firing all the 
birqh trees at the stem as we passed. I do not think I ever saw 
a more splendid sight than our labors produced ; fifty or sixty 
large trees, in a circle of a quarter of a mile, each with a blaze 
of reel light running up from the trunk to the loftiest branches, 
twisting through the gloomy tops of the fir trees, and falling off 
in flakes, spinning round in the air, and lighting up the white snow 
beneath the dark arches of the forest, and the darker sky above. 
We wandered away still further and further, till the voices of 
the Indians sounded faint in the distance, still spreading our glo- 
rious illumination. The fires immediately about the cabin had 
burned out, and were succeeded by a darkness more profound 
than before, and we had no small difficulty, and some anxiety, 
before we again reached it. In this lonely desert we destroyed, "** 
without remorse, dozens of magnificent trees, which would have 



i 



^^^^ 



86 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



been the pride of an English park. We were two days' journey 
from the haunts of men ; for years, perhaps, no human foot will 
tread these wilds again ; — for ages none seek them as a resi- 
dence. 

The Indians ate enormously, indeed, till they were stupified, 
and then smoked, prayed, and slept. That grinning villain, 
Jacques, intrigued zealously to get hold of the brandy bottle, but 
we were too wise for him, so the wretch sucked a couple more 
marrow bones, and became torpid : as the leader of the hunters, 
he honored us with his company at our side of the cabin, the 
Captain and I taking it in turn to sleep next to him. There was 
a little wind during the night, and the smoke of the green wood 
which we were burning, became almost intolerable ; it caused 
our eyes to smart severely, and there was no escape from it ; for 
it blew about in volumes till morning, and was far more dis- 
agreeable than the cold of the first encampment. The moose 
meat had transported the Indians to the land of dreams, and ren- 
dered them indifferent to that or any other annoyance. 

Jacques was very anxious that we should proceed in search of 
more moose the following day ; but we had had quite enough of 
the sport and of his company, and determined to return. The 
baggage was re-packed, the spoil dug up and put on tarboggins, 
and we " made track " for Quebec. 

About half-way on our first day's journey, the dogs, now some- 
what recovered from the effects of the last night's repletion, 
rushed up a hill near us, barking in rather a plethoric tone ; 
there was a rattling of branches, and the next moment some half- 
dozen Cariboo, or rein-deer, went by us at a gallop, about a hun- 
dred yards ahead. Shots from both our double barrels rang 
through the woods, and so did the crashing of the underwood, as 
the uninjured herd vanished in the bush. It was useless to think 
of pursuing them, for their light feet sank but little in the surface 
of the snow, hardened by frost after the thaw of the night before, 
and they went by us like the wind. This adventure shortened 
the road, and we put up at the same cabin where we had slept 
the first night, lodgings being still vacant ; but we had some 
work in shovelling out the snow which had since fallen. Two 
or three chattering birds like magpies, called by the Indians 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 87 

moose-birds, perched on the trees over us, and made frequen 
forays on the tarboggin where the meat lay, but the dogs very 
properly drove them away. We fired at them repeatedly, but 
they hopped up as the bullet chopped off the branch on which 
they were perched, and lighted on another, screaming and chat- 
tering worse than ever. 

The next morning we made a very early start, reached Mon- 
sieur Boivin's before noon, and got into our sleigh as soon as pos- 
sible. The mouffle of the moose, which we carried with us, is 
esteemed a great luxury in Canada, and very justly so ; it is the 
upper lip or nose of the animal, which grows to a great size, and 
is almost as rich as turtle ; many think that the soup made from 
it has a higher flavor. The legs and feet were sent to the squaws 
to be preserved, and ornamented with stained hair and beadwork, 
as trophies of the achievements of the pale warriors ; the rest 
of the animal is the perquisite of the Indians. 

The roads were much better on our return, but we were as- 
tounded when we saw by daylight the place by the precipice, 
where we had been upset a few nights before. It was dark long 
before we reached Quebec. Our driver took the wrong road of 
two, which parted in a fork, separated by a high, stiff wooden 
fence, with the top but just visible over the snow ; before we had 
gone far we fortunately met a habitan,who told us of our mistake. 
The road was too narrow to turn. Our driver first cried like a 
child, then suddenly taking courage, sacred furiously, and, seiz- 
ing the leader by the head, turned him into the deep snow, to- 
wards the right road : a few seconds of plunging, kicking, and 
shouting — a crash of the fence — and we were all landed on the 
other road ; the sleigh on its side, the horses on their backs, and 
the driver on his head. The confusion was soon corrected, and 
by ten at night we passed under the battlements into the gates of 
Quebec. 

It would be vain to attempt describing the happiness conferred 
by soap and water, razors and brushes, and a clean bed in a 
moderate temperature, after six days' privation of their good 
offices. The conclusion which I arrived at, with regard to this 
expedition was, that the greatest pleasure derivable therefrom 
was having it over. The next time I renew my acquaintance 



HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



with moose, the Zoological Gardens shall be my " ravage," a 
drowsy omnibus bear me instead of snow shoes, and the United 
Service Club shall be my cabin. The winter life in the " bush " 
is well worth seeing, as a new experience ; but as to the sport 
of moose-hunting — a day with " The Cheshire " is as superior to 
it, as were the Uncas and Chingahgook of the American novelist, 
to the drunken and degenerate savages of Sorette. 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 89 



CHAPTER VII. 

The convent. — The madhouss. 

During a winter visit to one of the Canadian towns, an oppor- 
tunity offered of my seeing the ceremony of taking the black 
veil, by two novices in a neighboring convent. 1 was awakened 
long before daylight, and, in due time, tramping through the deep 
snow on my way to the place. There had been a gale during 
the night, the low wooden houses by the road side were nearly 
covered to the roofs in the heavy drifts ; at the corner of each 
street gusts of wind whirled round showers of sharp, keen poudre, 
each morsel of which wounded the face like the sting of a 
venomous fly, and chilled the very blood. The clouds were 
close and murky, and the dreariest hour of the twenty.four, that 
just before the dawn, was made even more dismal by the cold 
glare of the new-fallen snow. 

A large, white, irregular structure, stood on an open space in 
a remote part of the suburbs, surrounded by a high wall, with 
massive gates. Over the entrance were two dim lamps, their 
sickly flames hardly struggling against the wind for the little life 
and light they possessed ; they, however, guided me, and, passing 
through a wicket door, I mounted the steps of the chapel, which 
lay within, to the right hand. On the altar seven tall tapers 
were burning, and round it many others cast a brilliant light. 
The end of the building where it stood was railed in, the other 
parts were in comparative darkness. Near the door ten or twelve 
spectators were standing ; some of them were relations of the 
postulants, but they appeared not to be much interested in, or 
moved by the ceremony. 

On the right side of the chancel was a return nearly as large 
as the body of the chapel, separated from it by a grating of dia- 
gonal bars of wood, like the frame- work of cottage windows. 



90 HOCHELAGA: OR, 



This return was appropriated to the devotions of the nuns, who 
were of a very austere order ; they were never allowed beyond 
the walls, or to see or hear the people of the outer world, except 
through these bars. I got a place on the steps of the pulpit, 
nearly opposite to the grating, and awaited patiently the solemn 
scene. 

When the hazy beam of the sun mingled itself with the light 
of the flaming tapers, the Bishop, in a robe stiff with gold, and 
covered with the insignia of his holy office, entered the chancel 
by the private door ; two boys preceded him, swinging censers 
of burning incense, and chanting in a low, monotonous voice. 
Six priests followed in his train, their heads meekly bov/ed, their 
arms folded on their chests, and each in turn prostrating himself 
before the cross. High mass was then performed with all its 
imposing ceremony — distant, unseen choirs joining from the in- 
terior of the convent. As the sound of the bell which announces 
the elevation of the host ceases, the folding doors within the grat- 
ing of the return are thrown open, and the postulants enter with 
a measured step. They are clothed from head to foot in white, 
and chaplets of white roses are wreathed in their hair. Sixty 
nuns, two and two, follow in solemn procession, covered with 
black robes ; each bears a lighted taper, and an open book of 
prayer in her hands. As they enter they chant the hymn to the 
Virgin, and range themselves along the walls, thirty of a side ; 
their voices swelling like a moaning wind, and echoing sadly 
from the vaulted roof. 

The two postulants advance up the centre of the return, near 
to the grating, bow to the host, and the Bishop exhorts them ; 
while he speaks they sink on their knees, and remain still. Four 
sisters carry in the veil, a pall of crape and velvet. While they 
bear it round, each nun bends to the ground and it passes ; it is 
then placed near the postulants, and the priests perform a service 
like that of the burial of the dead. The thirty dark statues on 
either side give the responses in a fixed key, of intensely mourn- 
ful intonation, unlike the" voice of living woman. I almost fancy 
those sombre figures are but some piece of cunningly contrived 
machinery. But under each black shroud, there throbs a human 
heart. School them as you may — crush every tender yearning 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 91 

the young bosom feels — break the elastic spirit, chase love, and 
hope, and happiness from the sacred temple of the mind, and 
haunt its deserted halls with superstition's ghosts — bury them in 
the convent's gloomy walls, where the dull round of life scarce 
rises above somnambulism — still, still under each black shroud 
will throb the human heart. 

The postulants receive the sacrament, then one rises, advances 
close to the grating, and kneels down before a small open lattice ; 
she throws aside her veil ; and looking calmly at the host which 
the Bishop holds before her eyes, repeats the vows after his dic- 
tation, in a quiet, indifferent tone. Her's is a pale, sickly, vacant 
countenance : no experience of joy or sorrow has traced it with 
lines of thought. Of weak intellect, bred up from infancy 
within these walls, her's seems no change, no sacrifice, it is only 
like putting chains upon a corpse. Two of the dark sisters stand 
behind her ; as the last vow is spoken the white veil is lifted from 
her head, and the black shroud thrown over her. 

The second now comes forward : she is on her knees, her face 
uncovered. How white it is ! white as the new-fallen snow out- 
side. She is young, perhaps has seen some one and twenty years, 
but they have treated her very roughly : where the seeds of woe 
were sown, the harvest of despair is plentiful — stamped on every 
feature. And the voice — I never can forget that voice — there was 
no faltering ; it was higli and clear as the sound of a silver bell ; 
but oh, how desolate — as it spoke the farewell to the world ! It is 
over — the symbol of her sacrifice covers her; she sinks down; 
there seems but a heap of dark drapery on the ground, but it 
quivers convulsively. 

The pealing organ, and the chorus of cold, sad voices, drown 
the sobs, but under the black shroud there throbs the human heart, 
as if that heart would break. 

After the Te Deum has been sung, the Bishop delivers an ad- 
dress, in an earnest and eloquent manner, summing up the duties 
the veil imposes, and praying for Heaven's holiest blessing on this 
day's offering. The two devoted ones rise, walk slowly to the 
first nun, make a lowly obeisance, then kiss her forehead, and so 
on with all in succession ; each as she receives the new comer's 
greeting, saying : — " Welcome, sister." Then by the same door 



92 HOCHELAGA; OR, 



by which they had entered, they go out two and two, the youngest 
last, and we see them no more. 

Farewell, sister ! 

I have since been told the supposed cause of the last of these 
two novices taking the veil ; though it is but a common-place 
story, it is not without interest to me, who saw her face that day. 
If you care to know it, it is as follows. Her father was a mer- 
chant of English descent. Her mother, a French Canadian, had 
died many years ago, leaving her and two younger daughters, 
who were brought up in the Roman Catholic religion. She de- 
voted all her time and interest to give her little sisters whatever 
of accomplishments and education she had herself been able to 
attain. Her face was very pleasing, though not beautiful ; her 
figure light and graceful ; and she possessed that winning charm 
of manner with which her mother's race is so richly gifted. 

Her father was occupied all day long with his business; when 
he returned home of an evening, it was only to sleep in an old 
arm-chair by the fire-side. She had no companions, and was too 
much busied with her teaching, and household affairs, to mix 
much in the gaieties of the adjoining town ; but she was always 
sought for; besides her good, kind heart, winning ways, and 
cheerful spirit, an aunt of her father's had left her a little fortune, 
and she was looked on quite as an heiress in the neighborhood. 
The young gentlemen always tried to appear to their greatest 
advantage in her presence, and to make themselves as agreeable 
as possible. She was, perhaps, the least degree spoilt by this, 
and sometimes tossed her little head, and shook her long black 
ringlets quite haughtily, but every one that knew her, high and 
low, liked her in spite of that, and she deserved it. 

About four years ago, at a small party given by one of her 
friends, vshe met, among other guests, the officers of the Infantry 
regiment quartered in the neighborhood. All were acquaint- 
ances except one, who had only a few days before arrived from 
England. He did not seem inclined to enter into the gaieties of 
the evening, and did not dance till near the close, when he got 
introduced to her. As soon as the set was over, he sat talking 
with her for a little time, and then took his leave of the party. 
She was flattered at being the only person whose acquaintance 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD 93 

the new-comer had sought, and struck by the peculiarity of his 
manner and conversation. A day or two afterwards, he called 
at her house ; she was at home, and alone. A couple of hours 
passed quickly away, and, when they bid good evening, she was 
surprised to find it was so late. After that day the acquaintance 
progressed rapidly. 

He was about six or seven-and-twenty years of age, the only 
son of a northern squire, of considerable estate, but utterly ruined 
fortunes. His father had, however, always managed to conceal 
the state of aflairs from him till a few months previously, when 
an accidental circumstance caused it to reach his ears. Without 
his father's knowledge he at once exchanged from the regiment 
of Hussars in which he then was, to an Infantry corps, met the 
most pressing claims with the few thousand pounds this sacrifice 
placed at his disposal, and went home for a few days to take 
leave of his parents before joining his new I'egiment in Canada. 
At first they were inconsolable at the idea of parting with him, 
even for this short time ; for all their love, and pride, and hope, 
were centred in their son, and he, in return, was devotedly 
attached to them. Soon, however, they were persuaded of the 
wisdom of what he had done ; and, deeply gratified by this proof 
of his affection, with many an earnest blessing they bade him 
farewell. 

Of an ancient and honored family, he bore the stamp of gentle 
birth on every limb and feature. His mind was strong, clear, 
and highly cultivated ; his polished manner only sufficiently cold 
and reserved to make its relaxation the more pleasing. In early 
life he had joined in the wild pursuits, and even faults, which 
indulgent custom tolerates in the favored classes; but still, 
through all, retained an almost feminine refinement and sensi- 
bility, and a generous unselfishness, sad to say, so seldom united 
with the hard, but useful knowledge of the world. Though 
rather of a silent habit, whenever he spoke his conversation was 
always interesting, often brilliant. Such was her new ac- 
quaintance. 

Poor child, in her short life she had never seen any one like 
him before : she was proud and happy that he noticed her ; he, 
so much older than she was, so stately and thoughtful, and he 



94 HOCHELAGA: OR, 



spoke so beautifully. She was rather afraid of him at first, but 
that soon wore away ; she fancied that she was growing wiser 
and more like him ; she knew she was growing nearer, nearer ; 
fear brightened into admiration, admiration warmed into love. 
Without a mother, or grown-up sister, or intimate friend to tell 
this to, she kept it all to herself, and it grew a stronger and 
greater tyrant every day, and she a more submissive slave. He 
now called at the house very often, and whenever there was a 
country driving party, he was her companion ; in the ball-room, 
or riding, or walking, they were constantly together : it was the 
custom of the country — no one thought it strange. 

So passed away the winter : in summer the regiment was to 
return to England, but he had become much attached to the 
simple Canadian girl. Her confidence in him, her undisguised 
preference, joined with a purity that could not be mistaken, won 
upon him irresistibly. He saw that her mind was being strength- 
ened and developed under his influence ; — that she did her utmost 
to improve herself and enrich the gift of a heart already freely, 
wholly given : he felt that he was essential to her happiness : he 
fancied she was so to his. They had no secrets from each other : 
he told her his prospects were ruined ; that his father's very 
affection for him, he feared, would make him more inexorable in 
withholding sanction from a step that might impede his worldly 
advancement : that the difference of their religion would add 
greatly to the difficulty. His father's will had ever been his 
law : before it came to the old man's time to " go hence and be 
no more seen," it was his fondest wish in life to be blessed with 
a father's blessing, and to hear that he had never caused him a 
moment's anxiety or regret. 

Then they sat down and consulted together, and he wrote to 
his parents, earnestly praying them to consent to his wishes for 
this union, appealing to their love for him, and using every ar- 
gument and persuasion, to place it in the most favorable light. 
He doubted, and trembled for the reply. She doubted not. Poor 
child ! She knew that in the narrow circle about her, she and 
her little fortune would be welcomed into any household ; beyond 
that, she knew nothing of the world, its pride, its luxuries, its 
necessities : it was almost a pleasure to her to hear that he was 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 95 

poor, for she fancied her pittance would set him at ease. In 
short she would not doubt, and waited for the answer to the letter, 
merely as a confirmation of her happiness. 

Weeks have passed away ; the time of the departure of the 
regiment is close at hand, but the English post will be in to- 
morrow. The delay has been a time of eager anxiety to him : 
joyful anticipation for her. They agree to open the answer to- 
gether. The post arrives. A heap of letters are laid on his 
table. He snatches up one, for he knows the handwriting 
well ; it is a little imperfect, for the writer is an old man, but 
hard, firm, determined. He hastens to her house : they do not 
speak, but go out into the garden, and stop at the end of the walk 
on the little terrace. 

The view over the broad rich valley is beautiful to-day : the 
young summer has painted earth in all her choicest coloring, but 
they do not observe it, they are looking on the letter ; he pale, 
almost trembling : she flushed with happy hope ; — her tiny fingers 
break the seal. The summer evening of her land has but little 
twilight : the sun, like a globe of fire, seems to drop from out the 
sky behind the earth, and leaves a sudden darkness. 

So, as she read, set the sun of hope, but the night that fell 
upon her soul had never a morning. 

The Lunatic Asylum for Lower Canada has been lately esta- 
blished at Beaufort, five miles from Quebec. Three eminent 
medical men of this city have undertaken it, under charter from 
the provincial government, which makes an annual allowance for 
the support of the public patients. At present there are eighty- 
two under their care. The establishment consists of a large 
house, occupied by the able superintendent and his family, where 
some of the convalescents are occasionally admitted as a reward 
for good conduct. Behind this is a range of buildings formhig. 
two sides of a square, the remaining enclosure of the space being 
made with high palings. These structures stand in a command- 
ing situation, with a beautiful view of Quebec, and the broad 
basin of the river. A farm of a hundred and sixty acres is at- 
tached to them. 

The system of this excellent institution is founded on kindness. 
No force or coercion of any kind is employed ; the patients are 



96 HOCHELAGA; OR, 



allowed to mix freely, work, or pursue whatever may be the bent 
of their inclinations. They dine together at a well Supplied 
table, and are allowed the free use of knives and forks. On one 
side of the dining hall are the apartments of the female patients, 
on the other those of the males. They each consist of a large, 
well-ventilated room, scrupulously clean, with a number of sleep- 
ing wards off it ; over head is also a large sleeping apartment. 

In the morning-room of the female patients were about thirty 
women, as neatly clad as their dreadful affliction would allow of; 
many of them of every variety of hideously distorted frame and 
face. Some sat sewing quietly, with nothing uncommon in their 
appearance — at least as long as their eyes were fixed upon their 
work. Others crouched in corners, covering their haggard faces 
with their long bony fingers. Others moped about, grinning 
vacantly, and muttering unformed words ; the unnatural shake 
of the head, the hollow receding forehead, the higii cheek bones, 
and diminutive lower jaw, betokening hopeless idiotcy. Others, 
again, hurried eagerly about, all day long seeking in every corner 
with restless, anxious eyes, for some supposed lost treasure. 

One tall, handsome girl about twenty years of age, sat by the 
window, looking fixedly on the ground, noticing nothing which 
passed around her. She was very neatly dressed, and looked so 
quiet, that at first I thought she was one of the nurses. When I 
spoke to her she answered me in rather a sullen tone, but with 
perfect composure ; she did not even move her large black eyes 
as she spoke, but I could see that they were dull, like beads. I 
could not learn the histories of many of these patients. They 
had been sent here from various parts of the country, without any 
description, and in some cases not even named. This girl's mad- 
ness was desponding ; she was occasionally very dangerous when 
apparently convalescent, and had several times tried to destroy 
herself. 

One idiot woman stood all the time with her face turned to the 
wall, in a corner. She was not dumb, but did not know how to 
speak. It is not known to what country she belonged, her name, 
or whence she came. She was found a long time ago wandering 
wild in the woods, part of her feet bitten off' by the frost. She 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 97 

shuns human beings with terror ; her inclination seems always to 
escape, and wander away again. 

A jabbering maniac became violent while we were there, beat- 
ing her bald head, grinding her long black teeth, and chuckling 
with a horrible, hyena laugh. Her small sunken eyes burned 
like coals. One of the nurses took her by the arm, and carried 
her down stairs to be placed by herself, which is the greatest 
punishment inflicted. She instantly became subdued, cried, and 
begged to be allowed to remain above. 

I asked a sad-looking old woman, who sat rocking herself to 
and fro on a chair, how long she had been in this place ? She 
told me she had forgotten, years and years ago. The stronger 
patients are often very kind to the crippled and weak, carrying 
them about for hours in the sunshine ; but the mad seem to have 
a great hatred and contempt for the idiots, and would often beat 
them, were they allowed. 

Most of the men were out of doors at work, or picking oakum 
in the sheds. A fine-looking young fellow held my horse, sitting 
for more than an hour in the conveyance. He was considered 
one of the most trustworthy, having sense enough to know that he 
was mad ; but for the awful stare of his eyes, I should not have 
noticed any peculiarity in his appearance or manner. While I 
was preparing to leave, about a dozen other male patients returned 
from their labor, accompanied by a keeper. One of them was 
pointed out for my observation as they passed : a quiet, mild- 
looking man, about fifty years of age. Respectably connected, 
and formerly prosperous in the world, he had become insane, had 
now for many years been in confinement, and was remarkable 
for gentleness and obedience. Some time ago, at an asylum at 
Montreal, while employed with another patient in cutting up wood, 
he seized an opportunity when his companion was stooping, and 
struck off the man's head with an axe ; afterwards he quietly 
resumed his work. Neither at that time, nor ever since, has he 
been in the least violent ; the deed seemed to cause him neither 
joy nor sorrow. He was quite unconscious that he had done any- 
thing unusual. 

In summer many of the patients are employed on the farm, or 
as builders and carpenters. An ice-house for their use has just 

PART I. 6 



HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



been finished by one of them. Some of the convalescents are 
allowed occasionally to visit their friends, and always return 
punctually at the time appointed. With very few exceptions, 
music appears to cause them great pleasure, soothing, rather than 
exciting them. They often dance, and are very fond of the 
amusement. In the spring, when the navigation opens, they 
crowd round the windows, and gaze with delight at the ships 
sailing up the magnificent river ; particularly those patients who 
have come from the old country ; they seem to have a vague 
idea that these stately ships are brought here to bear them home. 
Some of them talk a great deal to each other, but seldom get, 
or seem to expect, answers to what they say. It pleases them 
much to speak to visitors, and they thus make an effort to tell 
what may be asked of them, but will not take this pains with their 
fellow-patients. It is not worth while ; they know that they are 
mad. 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 99 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Fire. 

The 28th of May, 1845, will long be remembered at Quebec. 
The day was scorching hot, with a high wind, and clouds of 
dust rushing along the roads, in exposed places, spinning round 
and round in little whirlwinds, almost choking those who were 
caught in their vortex. 

But this is the busy time of the year ; the streets and shops are 
crowded, the river covered with floating rafts of timber. Every 
hour, ships of the spring fleet round Point Levy, and make their 
numbers, in colored flags, to their joyful owners. Masons and 
carpenters are hard at work, building on the vacant spaces of the 
streets, or repairing the ruins from small winter conflagrations. 
Over the rich valley of the St. Charles the husbandmen ply the 
spade and plough, and on the plains of Abraham a regiment of 
soldiers are skirmishing in loose and picturesque array. Every- 
thing around betokens life and activity. Sudden and harsh among 
these pleasant scenes, the bells of the churches of St. Roch rang 
out the well known alarm of fire. It was a quarter of an hour 
before noon when the first peal sounded. 

Shortly afterwards, from among the thick clouds of dust arose 
a thin column of white smoke, at the far end of the suburb of St. 
Valliere, under the steep cliff*. At first but little attention was 
excited, it was so common an occurrence, and only a few firemen 
hastened to the spot. They found that a large tannery had taken 
fire. The fire had spread to some extent, and there was great 
difficulty in procuring water. Sparks, and now and then a flame, 
began to shoot up into the smoke, already thick and much in- 
creased. The locality is unfortunate, for all the buildings round 
are of wood ; the population, too, is very dense, chiefly of the 
simple and unenergetic French Canadians. 



100 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



The sparks are borne away on the wind — but for this wind all 
would yet be well — and rest on the dry, shingle roofs ; however, 
numbers of people are at hand, perched on the tops of the houses, 
to protect them. For about an hour the progress is but small ; a 
stout Englishman is seated on the building next to the tannery, 
and, though the wind blows the stifling smoke and the sparks into 
his face, he boldly keeps to his work, to save his little property. 
He spreads wet blankets upon the shingles, changing them in a 
minute or two when dry and scorched ; and, wherever the fire 
rests for a space, he is ready with a vessel of water. 

But while this struggle is going on, a shout from the opposite 
side of the street proclaims that the fire has reached across, and 
the thickenino: smoke from above, shows that the houses on the cliff 
have also caught. At the same time, the blazing ruins of the 
tannery fall in with a heavy crash ; smoke and flame burst out 
through the windows of the next house, and soon after, through 
the roof itself. The poor fellow who had kept it down so long, 
still struggles hard against it, and it is not till the ladder which he 
had ascended takes fire that, maimed and blackened, he comes 
down and stands staring in despair at the progress of his ruin. 

But this is no time to dwell on individual misery, for the flames 
increase rapidly, the wind still driving them fiercely on : some- 
times they spread along the shingle roofs, at others work their 
way through the under stories of half a dozen houses unperceived, 
till, suddenly meeting with some more combustible matter, they 
burst out above and at the windows. As the flames gain ground, 
they suck the wind down the narrow streets in whirling eddies. 
Every here and there the burning frame-work of a house tumbles 
in, and a shower of fiery morsels rises in the air, then sweeps 
along with the intolerable dust and smoke, spreading the destruc- 
tion still further. 

A large district is now in a blaze ; fire engines are useless ; 
there is no water; and, besides, the case is past their aid. A 
number of soldiers with ropes and axes come doubling down the 
hill : they set stoutly to their work, and hack and tear down the 
houses nearest to the flames, thus making a gap in hope of stopping 
the communication. But the fire is lifted up by the wind, and 
leaps on into other streets, and fastens fiercely on its prey. Far 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 101 

away to leeward, the red plague bursts up through the wooden 
roofs, and the planked roads ; over-head, under foot, on every 
side, it seems to close round the soldiers. They fall back from 
place to place, black with smoke and dust, but still struggling 
almost against hope. 

The inhabitants become frantic with terror ; some rush into the 
flames on one side, in flying from them on the other ; many madly 
carry about articles of furniture already on fire, spreading the 
mischief in places before untouched ; others sit down in the help- 
lessness of despair, and weep like children. The sick and infirm 
are carried off" from the far distant parts of the town ; carts 
and caleches filled with fugitives, and the few precious things 
they had been able to snatch away, dash along the streets in all 
directions, forcing their way through the crowds. Sometimes, in the 
dense smoke and dust they drive against one another, break, upset ; 
and the wretched people they convey have to leave all behind 
them, and hasten away. Even strong men, who lingered too long, 
trying to save their little household goods, are suffocated by the 
smoke, and overtaken by the flames. 

The government fuel yard is a large space surrounded with 
wooden palings, where the suburb of St. Roch narrows between 
the river St. Charles and the walls of the upper town ; it is en- 
closed in three parts of a square of buildings, a long street run- 
ning under the walls at the farther side of the river, and parallel 
to it. At this place the troops make a great effort to stop the con- 
flagration ; they hew down the wooden palings, destroy several 
houses at the end of the row under the walls, and the fire-engines 
pump away gallantly. This is about three o'clock in the afternoon. 

Suddenly a hurricane arises ; the blazing shingles are lifted 
into the air ; planks and rafters, edged with fire, whirl over the 
ground, and the flames race along the street with terrible rapidity. 
All run for their lives : the fire-engines are with difficulty dragged 
away ; indeed, some are abandoned in the flight. Almost the 
only outlet now from the suburb is the gate through the walls into 
the upper town. As the crowd crushes through, the flames close 
over everything behind them. 

In the meantime the Artillery Barrack has taken fire in seve- 
ral parts of the shingle roofs and wooden palings, from the show- 



102 HOCHELAGA: OR, 



ers of sparks and the intense heat. Although separated by a 
long glacis and high bastions from the burning district, the grass on 
the ramparts burns up lil^^e straw. There is plenty of assistance : 
the roofs are drenched with water, but still the fire gains ground. 
A heavy shower of rain comes seasonably to aid ; and the bar- 
racks are saved, and with them the upper town. 

The fire, however, rages more furiously than ever, outside the 
walls ; spreading thence to the water, along the whole northern 
face, below the batteries and the magazine. This rumor runs 
through the crowd in a moment, and fills them with dismay. 
There are two hundred tons of powder in that magazine — should 
the fire reach it, not one stone upon another, not a living soul, 
will remain as a record of Quebec. The fire is close under the 
walls below the magazine — the smoke and flames rise above them, 
and whirl round and round with the eddying wind. The bright 
tin roof flashes back the livid light on the soldiers who are toiling 
about it, piling up wet clay at the doors and windows, tearing 
down the wooden houses near, pulling up the platforms of the 
batteries and the planks of the coping, and throwing them over 
the walls into the fire below. The crisis passes, the magazine 
is safe. 

Now, for nearly a mile in length, and from the battlements to 
the river, is one mass of flame ; the heat and suffocating smell 
are almost intolerable ; the dense black smoke covers everything 
to leeward, pressing down the clouds upon the hills many miles 
away, and drenching them with unexpected rain. Vessels cut 
their cables, and drift, half on fire, down the river ; the streams 
and wells in the suburbs are baked up dry ; churches, hospitals, 
ship-yards, each but a red wave in the fiery sea. Though it is 
past eight o'clock in the evening, there is more light than at noon 
day ; but it is a grim illumination, showing the broad St. Law- 
rence like a stream of blood, and covering the dark and lowering 
clouds above with an angry glow. 

The lower town has taken fire ! Here are the banks, the 
storehouses, the merchants' offices — all the most valuable prop- 
erty in the city. One more effort is made to save it. The 
flames have now reached the narrow neck between the ramparts 
and the water, and here there is a hope of stopping their 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 103 

progress. The general of the troops is on the spot ; he orders a 
house to be blown up. Powder has been kept ready at hand, and 
a charge is tried ; the building, when it is placed, is torn to 
pieces by the explosion, but still the flames stalk on. Directions 
are given to try again, with a heavier charge. Now four stout 
artillerymen carry a large barrel of gunpowder down to the 
place ; it is covered with wet blankets, and the top secured with 
clay, for the sparks fall thickly round ; then the bugles sound 
the retreat ; the staring crowds and busy soldiers fall back from 
the neighboring streets. None are near the spot but the gunners 
and their officers ; they place the charge in a niche on the lower 
story of a strong stone house, about the centre of the narrow neck 
of land ; the fire has already reached the building, and through 
the upper windows, smashing the glass, breaks out clear and strong. 
The sergeant lights a short fuze in the barrel of gunpowder. The 
door of the house is burning, but they escape through the win- 
dow, and run over the blazing beams and torn up streets, for 
shelter. For a few seconds all eyes are strained upon the spot, 
and the noises of the crowd sink to silence. Then the earth 
shudders, and, with a dull booming sound, up, up into the black 
sky shoots a spout of fire, and from above descends a shower of 
fiery beams, huge stones, and fragments of the torn roof: — a mo- 
ment more, and all sink into a dark gap of smoking ruins. The 
plague was stayed ; the greater fire ate up the less ; for a few 
minutes the very wind seemed conquered by the shock. 

But in St. Roch's the fire raged still as long as it found food 
to devour, and a slight change of wind during the night threat- 
ened the suburb of St. Valliere, which had hitherto escaped with 
but little damage. The flames had not quite burned out till noon 
the following day. In the government fuel yard there was an 
immense heap of coal, which burned for several weeks, and 
afforded warmth to some of the shivering unfortunates who had 
neither home nor roof. 

The next was a dismal day in Quebec ; 'crowds of people 
wandering about for shelter, some with bundles on their backs, 
containing the little they had saved ; others, lying under the walls 
on beds, with half burnt blankets wetted with the heavy rains, 
their few household goods strewed round them ; others, inquiring 



104 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



eagerly for some lost mother, wife, or child, whom they are to see 
no more. Others, severely burned or injured by falling beams, 
seeking for aid and advice ; and wagons heavily laden, drawn 
by weary horses,, driven hither and thither to find some place of 
rest. 

I met one wretched old man, his hand badly burnt and hastily 
bound up, returning despairingly and exhausted into the town. 
His cow — all he possessed in the world — had strayed away in 
the confusion of the night before. After having sought her in 
vain all day long through the country round, he sat down on the 
ruins of his little shed and wept bitterly. He was an Irish emi- 
grant, lately arrived, and had neither wife nor child : they had 
died at home long since, and here he had no friend ; the lone old 
man was too weak to work, and had laid out the small sum re- 
maining after his voyage in buying the animal now lost, which 
had since been his support. 

But the wealthy and uninjured were not idle ; a public meet- 
ing was called, and six thousand pounds subscribed on the spot ; 
large stores and public buildings v/ere thrown open for the house- 
less ; a quantity of clothing and blankets were given them ; food 
was supplied by the commissariat ; the medical men, with active 
benevolence, tended the wounded ; the civil and military officers 
and the poor soldiers gave all they could, in proportion to their 
means ; private charity was unbounded, whole families of wan- 
derers were received into the houses of the rich, while the poor 
shared their shelter as far as it went, with their now still poorer 
fellow-citizens. The insurance offices met their engagements, 
though reduced to the verge of ruin. From the country round, 
and distant parts of Canada, assistance came freely in : one little 
rural parish sent a few shillings — all the money they had — and 
cart-loads of firewood, corn, and home-made cloth, their only 
wealth. 

It was a woeful thing to see the wretched sufferer straying 
through the smoky ruins, to find the black spot where his happy 
home had sheltered him a few hours before ; hoping that there, 
perliaps, he might again meet with some loved one, separated 
from him in the confusion of that dreadful day. With horror he 
sees among the still smouldering ashes a blackened trunk, with 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 105 

scarcely enough of the shape left to show that it once bore God's 
image. 

The air was hot and stifling ; a thick cloud of smoke hung like 
a shroud over the ruins ; from among them rose a heavy, charnel 
smell, impossible to describe. Many half-consumed human bodies 
still lay about, and the carcases of great numbers of horses and 
cattle. 

A deep depression fell upon the people of Quebec : supersti- 
tious fears took possession of them ; they fancied they saw sights 
and prodigies, and that this calamity was a judgment for some 
great unknown crime. The Roman Catholic priesthood did not 
try to abate these terrors. Vague prophetic rumors, whose origin 
none could trace, went about, that the remainder of the city would 
soon be destroyed ; and, at length, the same day of the following 
month was said to be the day of doom. The dismal aspect of the 
place, the universal despondency, and the extent of the loss and 
suffering, affected many even of the strongest-minded. 

On the 28th of June a great part of the population remained 
during the day in trembling expectation of the fulfilment of these 
predictions. The day was warm and still, the night came on 
close and sombre. Nine o'clock passes without an alarm, ten 
also ; people begin to take courage, but a slight breeze springs 
up, and the dust creeps along the silent streets. It is eleven. — 
There is no sound but that of the wind, which now whistles past 
the corners of the houses and among the chimneys, blowing from 
the north-east — the opposite direction to that whence it came 
on the 28th of May. Half-past eleven. — The greater part of the 
inhabitants are sleeping in peace, even the most timid think the 
danger is now past. It is close on midnight ; some of them go 
to their windows to take a last look before retiring to rest. 

On the north-west part of the Upper Town, stands the church 
of St. Patrick ; the spire is very high, covered with bright tin ; 
on the top is a large ball, surmounted by a cross, both of glitter- 
ing metal. The night is very dark, and these are invisible in the 
gloom. 

A few minutes before midnight, a slight red flickering light is 
seen, high in the air ; for a second or two it plays about in uncer- 
tain forms, then shines out distinctly through the darkness, a fiery 
6* 

• 



106 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



cross up against the black sky. The ball, the spire are soon 
seen : whence is that lurid light reflected ? A small flame creeps 
up the side of a wooden house outside the walls, in the suburb of 
St. John, just where the last fire ended. — The city is on fire ! 

As the clock strikes twelve, from every tower and steeple in 
Quebec the bells ring out their panting peal of alarm. With the 
suddenness of an explosion, the bright, broad flame bursts out 
simultaneously through three or four roofs, and the wind, now 
risen to a storm, bears it away on its mission of destruction. In 
a few minutes the streets are crowded, thousands rush out of the 
city gates, to stare at the devastation which no human power can 
avert. Fire ! — Fire ! — Fire ! shouted by crowds wild with terror 
— the quick, jerking church bells, the rattling of the engines over 
the streets — soon waken to this night of desolation the people of 
Quebec. 

The gallant soldiers are again at work, vigorously, but in vain. 
The now furious gale sweeps over everything to leeward, with its 
fiery breath, bearing with it the black pall of smoke, followed by 
a stream of flame. The terrified inhabitants make no attempt to 
stop the destruction : they seize their sick and feeble, and the few 
things of value they can carry, and hasten up to the glacis of the 
citadel, and the suburbs of St. Louis. But in the meantime the 
houses are so close and the streets so narrow, that the fire spreads 
up the hill, even across the wind ; here at least it may be stopped. 

The artillerymen are ready with their powder barrels ; one is 
placed in a large wooden house at the corner of a street, that, by 
blowing it up, a gap may be made, to cut off* the communication. 
The retreat is sounded, and the people cleared away as well as 
the confusion will admit ; the flames rapidly approach the build- 
ing ; some straw on the floor has taken fire. The gunners stead- 
ily trample it out round the powder barrel. Then a strange delay 
arises — they can get no fire to light the fuzee ! For half a mile 
square, the blaze spreads before them, and they can get no fire ! 
They cannot approach the flame and live ; the wind whirls the 
smoke and sparks densely on its skirts, and the heat is insuffera- 
ble. One gunner throws his greatcoat over his head and rushes 
through the smoke, thrusting the portfire which he bears in his 
hand at the fire to light it ; but he fails, and staggers back half 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 107 

suffocated, his coat and hair singed and scorched. In the mean- 
time the house is in a blaze ; the officer and his men stand still 
by their dangerous charge, waiting with steady discipline till their 
duty is done. At length an eddy of wind carries some burning 
shingles to their feet, the sergeant seizes one, the fuze is lighted, 
and now they run for their lives up the deserted street. Through 
the roar of the wind and flames comes the crash of the bursting 
walls, and the roof is blown to pieces in the air. 

At this point the fire is conquered, but further down it spreads 
widely. More powder is brought, more houses blown up, some 
uselessly, for at the same time falling sparks have fired buildings 
far behind them. At length, by twelve successive explosions, a 
line of gaps is made at some distance from the fire : by this the 
communication with the suburb of St. Louis is cut off. In firing 
one of the charges, a man who had been repeatedly warned to 
stand clear, was killed from neglecting the caution. Every now 
and then through the night, the loud roar of these explosions rose 
above all the clamor. At eight o'clock in the morning the fire 
was got under, but not till it had exhausted itself to leeward 
by having consumed everything that it encountered. 

The sunrise that day had a strange and dismal effect ; the light 
over the distant hills appeared pale and livid, scarcely seen indeed 
in the blaze from the ruins of Quebec. 

Soon after day-break, a heavy I'ain began to fall, drenching the 
groups of unfortunates who were lying on the glacis and in the 
fields near the town, shelterless and exhausted. Many of these 
had been burned out the month before, and had since been living 
in the sheds and outhouses of the suburb of St. John, till the fire 
of last night deprived them of even that resource. A few had 
still on the gay dresses they had worn in some social circle when 
the alarm began, now wet and torn — tender women who perhaps 
had never known what hardship was before ; men accustomed to 
ease and comfort: the sun which set on their prosperity rose 
upon their ruin. 

Then was the open hand of charity held out ; every remaining 
house became a hospital : clothes, food, and shelter seemed almost 
common property. Once again, those who had least suffered 
came forward with a generosity only limited by the power to give. 



108 HOCHELAGA; OR, 



Provisions and clothes were again distributed by the authorities ; 
two hundred tents were pitched ; one of the barracks and several 
other public buildings were thrown open. Some of the insurance 
companies proved still able to meet their liabilities, others paid all 
they had and broke. The city of Montreal, with ready liberali- 
ty, subscribed thirteen thousand pounds ; other places in the Bri- 
tish provinces also gave their aid. But the great hope of the 
sufferers was in that land where the tale of distress is never told 
in vain, and they were not disappointed — England did not forget 
her afflicted children in the New World ; with splendid liberality 
she answered their appeal. By the desire of the Queen a collec- 
tion was made in every parish church throughout the land. Pri- 
vate subscriptions were raised in various places ; the imperial 
parliament voted a sum for the same object ; large quantities of 
blankets and clothing were immediately sent out — altogeJJier, in 
money upwards of one hundred thousand pounds, and at least 
thirty thousand pounds' worth of goods. 

There were naturally very strong suspicions that this second 
fire had been the work of an incendiary. As it occurred in the 
night on which it was foretold, and commenced in one of the very 
last houses that escaped the first time, to windward of the exten- 
sive and inflammable suburb of St. John, there was every appear- 
ance of design. Inquiry was diligently made, and all suspicious 
strangers were examined, but at length it transpired that it had 
originated in the carelessness of a stupid maid servant, who cast 
some ashes in a pit where a little straw and shavings of wood had 
been lately thrown ; fire enough remained in the ashes to ignite 
these. As they were under the wall of a wooden house, the 
flames had taken such hold before the alarm was given, that it 
was impossible to get them under : the stupid cause of the cala- 
mity was fast asleep, and the last person in the house to know the 
danger. 

A committee was formed immediately of the most influential 
people of the city, representing the different religious persuasions 
of the sufferers. Through the clergy, relief in money, food, and 
clothes was distributed j and, with a view to the proper disposal 
of the remainder of the great sums raised by subscription, by the 
Church of England, and elsewhere, the gentlemen of this com- 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 109 

mittee with untiring zeal sought out and obtained the fullest infor- 
mation as to the extent and proportions of the losses. It was found 
that in these fires sixteen thousand people were burned out, nearly- 
all of the poorer classes ; five hundred and sixty thousand pounds 
worth of property was destroyed ; and twenty-seven charred and 
mutilated corpses were found among the ruins : it is supposed, 
however, that many more lives were lost, for of strangers, or 
where a whole family was burnt, there was no record ; and in 
many places the strength of the flames would have destroyed all 
trace of the human form. 

Quebec soon took courage again : before the end of the summer 
a considerable number of houses were rebuilt, much better than 
those destroyed, and the streets were widened and Improved ; 
hundreds of temporary wooden sheds have also been erected, but 
by law they must be removed in eighteen months. There is no 
doubt that the great calamity, with its large amount of present 
suffering, will be an, ultimate advantage to this beautiful city. 



110 HOCHELAGA; OR, 



CHAPTER IX. 

Montreal. 

Farewell Quebec. The midsummer sun pours down its flood 
of golden light upon these scenes of beauty. As it falls on earth 
and water, a soft spray of luminous mist rises over the wide land- 
scape. Above the clear pure air dances and quivers in the glo- 
rious warmth ; the graceful lines of distant hills seem to undulate 
with a gently tremulous motion. The broad river is charmed to 
rest, not even a dimple on its placid surface ; no breath of air 
stirs through the dark forests, the silken leaves hang motionless. 

The grateful fields, freed from their wintry chains, are clothed 
with rich crops, already blushing into ripeness. Man fills the 
calm air with sounds of prosperous activity ; axes and hammers 
echo from the dockyards, ropes creak in the blocks as the bales 
of merchandize are lifted to the crowded wharves. The buzz of 
many voices rises from the busy markets ; wheels rattle, and hur- 
rying hoofs ring on the pavement ; the town is a great hive of 
thriving industry ; the hundreds of ships alongside, the bees 
which bear the honey of many a distant land to fill its stores. 

This is the day — this is the year to see Quebec ; a day of un- 
surpassed beauty — a year of matchless prosperity. May the day 
of beauty have no evening, the year of prosperity never a winter ! 
This midsummer's noon is not warmer than the hearts of her peo- 
ple — not more genial than their kindness. Farewell Quebec. 
The lone stranger, who came scarcely a year ago, leaves many 
a valued friend behind, carries with him many a grateful memory. 
And, when again by his English fireside, his thoughts will often 
wander back to happy hours passed among the snows of distant 
Canada. 

I have arranged to go by the Montreal steamer at five o'clock 
in the afternoon. The day soon passes away in parting visits ; 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. Ill 

they seem very hurried. There is not half time to hear or say 
all the kind things, or to dwell long enough on the hearty pres- 
sure of the hand, when you know that in the probability of the 
future, those voices will never sound in your ear again, and that 
you are to feel the friendly grasp no more. It was very good of 
those people to come down to see me start, but I had been much 
better pleased had they stayed away. The bell rings, they 
hasten off the deck on to the wharf; again a hurried " good bye ;" 
the paddle wheels make a few strokes backwards to gain an open- 
ing, then turn ahead, bite deep into the water, and we glide 
rapidly on. As we pass the wharf, those friends wave their 
hands, I do so too ; we are quite close, but somehow my eyes are 
a little dim, I can scarcely distinguish them as they run along 
the end of the quay, keeping pace with us up to the very edge. 
Our hands wave once again for the last time — I cannot see a bit 
now. When my sight cleared we were out in the middle of the 
broad stream, the people on the shore but tiny specks in the dis- 
tance. 

In describing one American river steam-boat you describe all. 
The greater part of the engines is above the level of the water ; 
two large arms labor up and down over each side of the upper 
deck, while a funnel from near each paddle-box puffs out the 
smoke. They are not fitted with masts for inland navigation, the 
sleeping and eating saloon is in the body of the boat ; the ladies' 
cabin, the state-room, with the bar, ticket office, &c., are in a 
sort of upper story erected on the deck, their roof being the pro- 
menade. These vessels are beautifully built, and go through the 
water with great rapidity ; fifteen or sixteen miles an hour is not 
uncommon ; they are also comfortable and very well managed, 
those between Quebec and Montreal are not surpassed by any in 
America. 

We pass Wolfe's Cove, rich in undying memories; beyond it, 
green slopes, gentle woodlands and neat country-houses, each re- 
calling to recollection some pleasant ride or drive, or social even- 
ing ; on the left the Chaudiere river, dwindled into a tiny stream 
under the summer's sun, its rustic bridge, and rocky pine- fringed 
banks ; on the right Cape Rouge, the end of the bold table-land 
on which stands the great citadel of the west. Beyond it, stretches 



112 HOCHELAGA; OR, 



out for many miles a rich, flat tract, varied by field and forest ; 
and ever and anon the church and village, and in the far distance 
the bold range of hills which shelter these fair valleys from the 
ice-blast of the north. 

For one hundred miles up the great river, the scene is the 
same, monotonous if you will, but monotonous in beauty ; the 
shores all along thickly dotted with the white cottages of the sim- 
ple Jiabitans. A short distance above Cape Rouge, we met a 
large raft of white pine, one of the strange sights of the St. Law- 
rence. It was about three acres of timber, bound together by 
clamps of wood into a solid stage ; on this were erected five or 
six wooden houses, the dwellings of the raftsmen. The wind 
was in their favor, and they had raised in front a great number 
of broad, thin boards, with the flat sides turned to the breeze, so 
as to form an immense sail. These floating islands are guided 
by long oars' ; they drop down with the stream till they meet the 
tide, then anchor when it turns, till the ebb again comes to their 
aid. They have travelled from many hundred miles in the in- 
terior ; by the banks of the far distant branches of the Ottawa 
those pines were felled ; in the depth of winter the remote forests 
ring with the woodman's axe ; the trees are lopped of their 
branches, squared, and dragged by horses over the deep snow to 
the rivers, where, upon the ice, the rafts are formed. When the 
thaw in the spring opens up the mountain streams, the stout lum- 
berers collect the remains of their winter stock, with their well- 
worn implements, and on these rafts boldly trust themselves to 
the swollen waters. They often encounter much danger and 
hardship ; not unfrequently the huge mass goes aground, and the 
fast sinking stream leaves the fruit of their winter's labors stranded 
and useless on the -shingly beach. 

As the evening dropped upon us, the clouds thickened into a 
close arch of ominous darkness, while a narrow rim of light all 
round the horizon threw all above and below into a deeper gloom. 
Soon, a twinkle of distant lightning and a faint rolling sound 
ushered in the storm ; then the black mass above split into a 
thousand fragments, each with a fiery edge ; the next moment 
the dazzled sight was lost in darkness, and the awful thunder 
crashed upon the ear, reverberating again and again. Then 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 113 

jagged lines of flame dived through the dense clouds, lighting 
them for a moment with terrible brilliance, and leaving them 
gloomier than before. We saw the forked lightning strike a large 
wooden building on the bank somewhat a-head of us, stored with 
hay and straw : immediately afterwards a broad sheet of flame 
sprung up through the roof, and, before we had passed, only a 
heap of burning embers was left. In a short time the tortured 
clouds melted into floods of rain. 

We pass St. Trois, St. Anne's, Three Rivers, Port St. Francis, 
and enter Lake St. Peter. These towns improve but little : their 
population is nearly all of the French race ; the houses are poor, 
the neighboring farms but rudely tilled. The Canadian does not 
labor to advance himself, but to support life ; where he is born 
there he loves to live, and hopes to lay his bc^s. His children 
divide the land, and each must have part bordering the road or 
river, so you see many farms half-a-mile in length but only a few 
yards wide. Here in autumn they reap their scanty crops, in 
winter dance and make merry round their stoves. With the 
same sort of dress that the first settlers wore, they crowd, each 
Sunday and saint's day, to the parish church. Few can read or 
write, or know anything of the world beyond La belle Canada ; 
each generation is as simple and backward as the preceding. 

But, with their gentle courteous manners, their few wants, 
their blind, trusting, superstitious faith, their lovely country, their 
sweet old songs, sung by their fathers centuries ago, on the banks 
of the sunny Loire, — I doubt if the earth contains a happier peo- 
ple than the innocent habitans of Canada. 

Lake St. Peter is but an expansion of the river ; the waters 
are shallow and the shores flat and monotonous ; after twenty-five 
miles it contracts again and flows between several wooded islands. 

We leave Sorel at the mouth of the Richelieu river, to the left : 
this town is made, by English hands, more prosperous than its 
neighbors. On the same side, thirty miles higher up, is Varennes, 
a place of much beauty : a hundred years ago people crowded to 
its mineral springs ; now it is but a lonely spot. A fine old 
church, with two lofty spires, stands in the centre of the village ; 
in the back-ground, far away to the south-east, is the holy moun- 



114 HOCHELAGA; OR, 



tain of Ronville ; on the summit the Pilgrim's Cross is seen for 
many a mile. 

Above Montreal, the Ottawa joins the St. Lawrence; both 
streams seem bewildered among the numerous and beautiful 
islands, and, hurrying past in strong rapids, only find full rest in 
the broad, deep river, fifteen miles below. 

At eight o'clock in the morning we were beside the wharf at 
Montreal : it is of great extent — reaching nearly a mile up the 
river, and very solid, built of handsome cut stone. It is broad 
and convenient for purposes of commerce ; vessels of five hundred 
tons can discharge their cargoes there. Immediately above the 
town, the rapids of Lachine forbid further navigation. The 
city extends along the river nearly two miles, the depth being 
about one half theJength. The public buildings are calculated 
for what the placed to be, — at present being perhaps too large 
and numerous in proportion, though fifty thousand inhabitants 
dwell around them. The neighboring quarries furnish abundant 
materials for the architect, and the new shops and streets are 
very showy. The French Cathedral is the largest building in 
the New World : its proportions are faulty, but it is nevertheless 
a grand mass of masonry ; ten thousand people can kneel at the 
same time in prayer within its walls. The town is well lighted 
and kept very clean, full of bustle, life, and activity, — handsome 
equipages, gay dresses and military uniforms. Many rows of 
good houses, of cut stone, are springing up in the suburbs, and 
there is a look of solidity about everything, pleasing to the Eng- 
lish eye. Some of the best parts of the town are still deformed 
by a few old and mean buildings, but, as the leases fall in and 
improvements continue, they will soon disappear. 

Montreal is built on the south shore of an island thirty miles 
long, and about one third of that breadth. All this district is very 
fertile ; the revenues belong to the seminary of the St. Sulpicians, 
one of the orders of the Church of Rome, and are very ample. 
The Mont Royal alone varies the level surface of this island. 
The Parliament House, the seat of government, the military head 
quarters, and the public offices of Canada, are in this city ; the 
trade is very considerable ; within the last few years it has 
rapidly increased, and is increasing still. The export of corn to 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 115 

England opens a mine of wealth, while in return its wharves are 
crowded with our manufactures and the luxuries of other coun- 
tries. The people are fully employed, and live in plenty ; but 
there are occasionally disturbances among them, occasioned by 
the collisions of the English, Irish, and French races. The elec- 
tions are carried on with much excitement and bitterness of feel- 
ing, but usually end in the success of the conservative principle. 
Society also is much divided ; there is but little of that generally 
social feeling which characterizes Quebec. Their entertain- 
ments have more display, but are far less agreeable than those 
of the sister city, and among the different coteries of the inhabit- 
ants there is not apparently much cordiality. 

Montreal would be considered a very handsome town in Eng- 
land, and in bustle and activity far surpasses any one of its size 
there ; the wharves, hotels, shops, baths, are also much finer ; it 
possesses quite a metropolitan appearance, and no doubt it will, 
ere long, be the capital of a great country. Few towns in the 
world have progressed so rapidly in size, beauty, convenience, 
and population, within the last few years, and at this present time 
its commerce is in a most prosperous condition. You see in it all 
the energy and enterprise of an American city, with the solidity 
of an English one. The removal hither of the seat of govern- 
ment from Quebec and Kingston, has, of course, given it a consi- 
derable impulse of prosperity at their expense ; but it is still more 
indebted to its excellent commercial position, and the energy of 
its inhabitants. 

Now, from the bustle, prosperity, and contentions of Montreal, 
let us bear back our thoughts for a moment over the bridge of 
history to the time — but yesterday in the world's chronology — when 
the kings of the ancient people welcomed the Pale-faces to the 
shores of Hochelaga. That day was their Hastings. They 
were smitten with deadlier weapons than Norman bow or lance — 
the plague of the white man's crimes ; their innocence was barer 
than the Saxon soldier's breast, their wounds far deeper, more 
hopeless of a cure. They were not subjugated nor driven out, 
but they withered up before the strangers. Beneath the grounds 
where they hunted, their bones lie j their land is their wide 



116 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



cemetery ; scarcely a mound, or stone, or a trace even of tradi- 
tion, now points out the spot where any of their millions sleep. 

Gentle, feeble, simple, — they were yet too proud to mingle with 
a race whose superiority they felt ; they refused its civilisation, 
but alas ! copied its vices ; in these, at least, they felt themselves 
its equal. As the snow in spring, they melted away — stained, 
tainted, trampled down. 

My fancy is busy with the past. I have swept away those 
crowded wharves and lofty spires : on their sites the rich corn- 
fields wave again ; the shady forest spreads over the distant 
slopes, the birch-bark roofs of the wigwams peep through the tall 
trees upon the mountain side, the light canoe skims over the 
broad river ; the wise Sachems of the tribes meet us on the shore 
with generous welcome ; the graceful Indian maiden bends 
beneath her fragrant burthen of fruits and flowers, to be laid at 
our feet. 

A cabman seizes me by each arm, " Tetu's or Rasco's, Sir, 
take you up, luggage and all, for a shilling." In a moment my 
graceful Indian maiden was changed into an Irish porter ; the 
burthen of fruits and flowers, to my well-worn portmanteau, 
which was presently laid at my feet in the bar-room at Rasco's 
Hotel. 



.-J' 



y 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 117 



CHAPTER X. 

Kingston. — Lake Ontario. 

On this occasion my visit to Montreal was a very short one, but 
I have several times been there both in winter and summer. 
There is but little in the neighboring country to tempt you to ex- 
plore ; the ride round the mountain, indeed, gives some views of 
much beauty ; particularly where you see the Ottawa pouring 
through its many channels into the northern branch of the St. 
Lawrence. Generally the country is flat, and has but little cha- 
racter ; there are several islands about ; that of St. Helen's is 
the most picturesque in the group, but unsightly barracks and 
rough field-works deform its gentle slopes. 

A clumsy stage-coach carried me to Lachine, nine miles from 
Montreal : there it was put on board a steamer, borne through 
Lake St. Louis, and released again at the cascades, to carry us 
on sixteen miles further to Coteau du Lac. In a short time the 
great works will be complete, to bear large steamboats past all 
the rapids : the Lachine, Beauharnois, St. Lawrence, and Wel- 
land canals will be the connecting links of this immense chain of 
communication, from the gulf of St. Lawrence to the furthest 
of the great lakes — one broad highway. We pass over Lake St. 
Francis, and through the St. Lawrence canal ; opposite to its 
entrance is the Indian village of St. Regis, close to which is the 
boundary line between Canada and the United States, where the 
forty-fifth parallel of latitude strikes the great river. 

The most remarkable of the rapids, whose interruption the 
industry of man is busied to avoid, is called the Cedars. The 
stream is here pent into several narrow channels among wooded 
islands, and tumbles fiercely along over its rocky bed. Steamers 
and other boats constantly venture down this perilous passage, 
but not unfrequently pay dearly for their temerity. At present 



lis HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



they can only return up to the great lakes by the Ottawa river and 
the Rideau canal, from which they emerge at Kingston, on Lake 
Ontario ; but the works are going on rapidly, and by them this 
great round will be saved. In the year 1759, when General 
Amherst entered Canada, his advanced guard, of about three 
hundred men, was embarked above the Cedars ; the intention 
was to float down and take up a position on the opposite side of 
the river. Perhaps it was that those dangerous channels were 
then but little known, or that the pilot played them false — none 
remained to accuse ; the next day the lifeless bodies of the British 
soldiers, clothed in the well-known red, floating past the town of 
Montreal, gave the first notice of invasion. 

There were many Americans in the steamer ; at this time of 
the year great numbers, particularly from the sultry south, 
crowded all the conveyances in Canada and the northern States, 
in search of the health which their own climate denies them. 
Amongst them was a taciturn, sallow, austere-looking, middle- 
aged man, whose place at dinner, luncheon, and breakfast, hap- 
pened to be next to me ; he stared at me a good deal, but spoke 
never a word. Except when at meals, he sat in a particular part 
of the vessel, smoking without intermission, protected from the 
sun by the enormously broad brim of a white beaver hat. At 
Ogdensburgh, the first place on the American side where the 
steamboat touches, we all went ashore for a few seconds to stretch 
our limbs ; my silent friend heard me say that I had never before 
been in the States ; when he saw me fairly landed he for a mo- 
ment removed the cigar from his mouth and spoke — " I reckon, 
stranger, you have it to say now that you have been in a free 
country." We afterwards discovered that he was a planter from 
Alabama, and that, to the pleasures of his tour, he united the 
business of inquiring for runaway slaves. 

From Ogdensburgh, there is a daily American line of steamers 
up through the St. Lawrence and Lake Ontario to Lewiston, near 
Niagara. The inhabitants on both sides of the frontier are supe- 
rior to any confined and illiberal feeling of nationality as to their 
preference for either this or the Canadian line ; in comfort, speed, 
safety, both are on a level — and a very good level too ; therefore 
as eitheV side abates a few pence in the fare, the human tide 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 119 

flows certainly to it. In most of the American steamers, here 
and elsewhere, the fare includes the expenses of the table for the 
passengers ; a bell or gong summons them to the different meals. 
The table is usually covered with an infinity of very small dishes, 
containing a great variety of curious animal and vegetable 
matter, in such proportions that a plate may bear the contents of 
two or three dishes being emptied into it at once, with impunity- 
The principal characteristic of the cookery is grease. 

It is quite unnecessary for me to add anything to the very nu- 
merous and far from flattering descriptions which have been given 
of the modes of eating these viands, as practised by many of our 
travelling brethren of the United States : their habits are different 
from ours ; to us they are disagreeable ; there is no use in dwell- 
ing on the subject. The people you meet in public conveyances 
in America are of every class ; perhaps your neighbor on either 
hand, whose extraordinary performances have excited your asto- 
nishment or disgust, may be a man who but two or three years 
before was a swineherd in Tipperary, or yesterday a woodsman 
in Kentucky ; and probably he has not found his new school of 
refinement sufficiently active in example and instruction to cure 
him immediately of his little eccentricities of manner. I must 
say that I have seen nearly as many disagreeable peculiarities at 
ordinaries on the continent of Europe, and indeed in Paris itself, 
as those of my American fellow-travellers. A Frenchman per- 
haps excels in the power of enjoying a dinner, and in apprecia- 
tion of the merits of the cuisine — a German in the quantity he can 
consume — an Englishman in his manner of eating it — and an 
American, certainly, is unrivalled in the railroad rapidity with 
which he goes through the work. There seems a general deter- 
mination in America to alter and improve upon English customs ; 
the right side of the road is always kept in driving, which can 
only be adopted for the sake of being different from the mother 
country, as it is so much more difficult for the coachman to judge 
of the distance he can afford in passing. Perhaps it is on the 
same principle that they reverse, as much as possible, the uses of 
the knife and fork. 

Within a mile of the thriving town of Prescott is Windmill 
Point, on the Canadian side, the scene of the sharp combat which 



120 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



ended in the surrender of the unfortunate Von Shoultz : it is a 
' bare, black place, not enlivened by its associations with piracy and 
scaffolds. On both banks of the river there are many towns and 
villages, most of them prosperous, all increasing. The general 
appearance of advancement and cultivation is superior on the 
American side ; within the last three years, however, the steady 
progress of the northern bank begins to bear comparison better 
with the rather hectic prosperity of the southern. Now we are 
among the mazes of the " thousand islands," and pass so close to 
some of them that we can pull the leaves from the graceful bend- 
ing boughs of the trees, as the merciless wheels of the steamer 
dash to atoms their beautiful reflections in the mirror of the calm 
blue water. The eye does not weary to see, but the hand aches, 
in ever writing the one word — beauty ; wherever you steer over 
this great river — beauty, beauty still. 

The impression is not pleasant on landing at Kingston : it is an 
uncomfortable-looking place, and the public buildings are out of 
proportion to the size of the town ; some of the stre^ets are drearily 
wide, and rank grass grows on their sides. The inhabitants are 
about twelve thousand ; their numbers still increase, but since 
the removal of the seat of government from the place, it has a 
deserted look ; it is however of some importance in trade, being 
the port of the Rideau canal, which, with the Ottawa, opens up 
so much of the back country, and is a means of communication 
with Montreal. In case of war this line would be of great value, 
as for a long distance only one bank of the St. Lawren^is in 
our possession. The now useless government house is aB^ut a 
mile from the town, on the shore of the lake : the town hall and 
market are very handsome, and the custom-house. Penitentiary, 
jail, court-house and bank, are all large but rather unsightly 
buildings. Mineral springs of great strength have lately been 
discovered, one a hundred and fifty feet from the surface ; a large 
bath-house is built beside them. Kingston possesses thirty or 
forty steamers ; during the summer they buzz about with won- 
derful activity. Fort Henry, on a hill to the eastern side of the 
entrance of the Rideau canal, is a strong place, but rather too 
far from the town for efficient defence ; it throws, however, its 
protection effectually over a dockyard of some importance, which 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 121 

lies beneath it. A de'Lac'.jrr.ent of artillery and two regknents 
garrison the fort and town. ^ --- - ^^ 

The society of Kingston received a fatal blow in the removal 
of the seat of government ; it also wants the mixture of French 
Canadian grace and liveliness which gives such a charm to that 
of the Lower Province. From the constant intercourse with the 
United States, the tone of manners of all classes savors not a little 
of these neighbors, and a slight nasal twang and a "guess" or 
two are by no means uncommon. Many retired officers of the 
army and navy have settled here, and live in great comfort. The 
necessaries of life are very cheap, and the shooting and fishing 
in the neighborhood offer many inducements. For those wild 
love yachting, the great Ontario opens out like an ocean from 
their doors, with islands sufficiently numerous to supply a variety 
of excursions every day for years. 

I do not like these great lakes ; the waters are blue, pure, and 
clear, but they look dead. There was a great calm when I was 
there, and there are no tides ; the stillness was oppressive ; the 
leaves of the trees in some parts of the beach dipped in the water 
below, motionless as the air above. The shores are low and flat, 
on this side ; the eye wearied as it followed the long, even lines 
in the far perspective, mingling with those of the surface of the 
lake ; on the other side the broad expanse lay like polished lead, 
backed by the cloudless sky. During the last American war, in 
1813, the whole of the English squadron of this lake was taken 
or destroyed by the Americans under Commodore Chauncey. 
The balance of successes on the inland waters was decidedly in 
their favor at that time ; they had the great advantages of being 
near their resources, and having plenty of their best seamen dis- 
posable, from the Atlantic coast being sealed to their commerce 
and adventure ; while the attention of England was too much 
occupied with her enormous efforts and magnificent success in 
Europe, to pay much attention to the comparatively unimportant 
struggle in the West. 

At the same time I freely and willingly give to the Americans, 
my humble tribute of praise for the skill and gallantry of their 
officers and sailors ; of these any country might be proud, as for 
many high-minded and chivalrous acts, worthy of a great and free 

PART I. 7 



122 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



people. In the noble and admirable quality of military virtue, 
they have in their, short history proved themselves not inferior to 
any nation in the world. None should be more ready to acknow- 
ledge their merit than Englishmen, from whose race they have 
sprung, and who have so often found them to be by sea and land 
*' worthy of their steel." 

May it seem fit to the Great Ruler of all counsels, that our 
future rivalry may be only in works of peace, in the increase of 
the happiness of our people ! Even now, while a degree of mu- 
tual irritation and distrust exists, I earnestly breathe a wish, 
express a hope, ay — announce a faith — that the bright day which 
philanthropists have dreamt of, poets seen in the visions of fancy, 
and the inspired page of prophecy foretold, is not far distant ; 
when the spread of enlightenment, civilisation, and above all, of 
Christianity, among the nations of the earth, will do away for 
ever with the stern and terrible necessity of the sword ; when 
the dazzling light which fame now throws upon the names of 
those who direct victorious armies, may be looked upon but as a 
false meteor, their records known only as a memory of a by-gone 
and mistaken glory. 

This Lake Ontario is five hundred miles round, the length 
measures three times the breadth, and its surface is two hundred 
and thirty-one feet above the level of the Atlantic. Throughout 
the whole extent the largest ships may sail, in many parts a line 
of a hundred fathoms has not reached the bottom ; owing to this 
great depth it never freezes, except where the water is shallow 
along the shores. A great, and every year increasing trade, is 
carried on over its surface in steam and sailing vessels worthy of 
the ocean. The English possess now a marked superiority in 
the number of their shipping, their steam-boats are twice as nu- 
merous as those of their southern neighbors, their shore is also 
more populous, more solidly thriving, and better cultivated : ten 
years ago the reverse was the case. 

Numerous streams pour in their tribute, both from the north 
and the south : these and the waters of the lake abound in fish 
of excellent and varied flavor ; the salmon and bass are the most 
highly prized, and are taken in great quantities. The fantastic 
mirage plays its freaks here too : in the summer weather, when 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 123 

you are among the islands or near the shore, its illusions are as 
beautiful as they are strange. On the Canadian side, to the west 
of Kingston, is a most singular arm of the lake, called the Bay 
of Quinte ; for eighty miles it intrudes its zigzag course through 
the land, nearly returning again to the main waters. In many 
places it is but a mile broad, but everywhere deep and safe. On 
its shores the forests are rapidly giving way to thriving settle- 
ments, some of them in situations of very great beauty. 

By far the greater number of emigrants from the British 
islands settle in these lake districts, but the twenty or thirty thou- 
sand a year who arrive are at once absorbed, and make but little 
apparent difference in the extent occupied ; the insatiable wilder- 
ness still cries for more. The rate of wages for the labor is very 
high — as is also the profit — of the farmer. The English mar- 
kets are open to any quantity of their produce, the forges of 
Sheffield and the looms of Manchester supply payment, while 
twenty thousand of the best seamen in the world practise their 
calling and earn their living in bearing these interchanged goods 
over the Atlantic. Alas ! for the five months of the year in which 
nature has fixed her irrevocable decree against this happy inter- 
course ! Woe to those ships which venture to trust too long to 
the treacherous mildness of the autumn ! In 1845, all the ves- 
sels but one that were detained to the 28th of November — thir- 
teen in number — went aground in one stormy night of bitter frost, 
between Quebec and the Gulf of St. Lawrence. They remained 
jammed in among the ice, most of them crushed into wrecks, 
while the crews of several perished in awful tortures, in a vain 
effort to escape. Some of the survivors lost their limbs from 
being frost-bitten, others are cast on the lonely islands, and for 
many a day their fate must remain unknown. Let those hope 
for them who can : — high masses of ice float rapidly round their 
frozen prison with each changing tide, sometimes dashing against 
each other with a roar like thunder. These grim sentinels guard 
their wretched prisoners from all chance of human aid, till the 
warmth of summer, like a good angel, chases them away, and 
releases those iron men who may have survived the bitter trial. 



124 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



CHAPTER XL 

Toronto — Niagara. 

About midday we entered the harbor of Toronto : a natural mole 
of sand, some miles in extent, embraces its waters, and guards 
them from the turbulence of the great lake ; this singular penin- 
sula has some verdure, a few trees, and several houses, but is of 
a desolate and dreary character. The main land is quite differ- 
ent ; there rich fields, neat villas, shrubberies, and plantations, 
carry your thoughts at once to merry England. As you ap- 
proach the town, this impression becomes stronger ; when landed, 
it is complete. The streets, the shops, the people, are English ; 
their accent, and manners, and, best of all, their hearts are Eng- 
lish too. This place is the nucleus of all that is loyal and true 
in Upper Canada ; and, as the men of Londonderry look back 
with honest pride upon their fathers' gallant defence against a 
despot, so may those of Toronto rejoice in their successful resist- 
ance to the still darker tyranny of an unbridled rabble. 

The city is admirably situated, and very prosperous ; it was 
not incorporated till 1834, yet now it contains more than twenty 
thousand inhabitants, their number having doubled itself in ten 
years. No town on the American continent has advanced more 
rapidly, and, perhaps, none so solidly. The houses are well 
built and lasting, the public buildings convenient, but not over- 
grown ; commercial character and credit are high. Its pros- 
perity is not the mushroom growth of staring, tottering, wooden 
cities, run up by designing swindlers of foreign gold, but the 
result of honest industry and healthy progress. The back coun- 
try is very rich and valuable as an agricultural district, while the 
produce finds a ready sale for the English market. The enter- 
prising inhabitants are planning various railroads from the neigh- 
boring towns, whose prosperity keeps pace, and is identified with, 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 125 

.heir own. They do not hold out mendacious promises of enor- 
mous and impossible interest to the capitalist — but the people of 
Canada do not repudiate. 

In 1793, Governor Simcoe caused this harbor to be surveyed, 
and founded the town, then called Little York : two Indian fami- 
lies were at that time in quiet possession, and myriads of wild 
fowl crowded the waters of the bay. In 1813, the Americans 
burned it ; after the peace it was rebuilt, and the name with good 
taste changed to the old Indian word — Toronto — the place of 
meeting, or of council. In distant times the tribes from the 
shores of the lake assembled there to make peace or war. A fort 
of tolerable strength, but much out of repair, now protects the 
entrance of the harbor ; there is but a small proportion of military 
force, but there are plenty of loyal citizens to man it, — men who 
have already done their duty, and are ready to do it again, should 
occasion arise to call forth their services. 

The great improvements in Toronto have been within the last 
few years : the streets are well paved, and lighted with gas, and 
extensive water-works supply every part of the town. Here is 
the college of Upper Canada, a well-situated building, possessing 
extensive grounds, and bearing a high character for its system of 
instruction and discipline : in very many respects it is similar to 
the English universities, particularly in being exclusively devoted 
to the benefit of those who are members of the Church of Eng- 
land. The rules of this institution, and the disbursements of its 
considerable state endowments, are a constant subject of political 
discussion. The office of the Canada Land Company is also in 
this town. This body is still looked upon with great jealousy 
and dislike by a considerable party in the province, perhaps not 
altogether without reason. Many lands, no doubt, remain unoc- 
cupied in consequence of this monopoly : even as far away as the 
banks of the Jaquenay, people labor under, and complain bitterly 
of its pressure, and that fertile district is still only tilled by a 
few chance squatters, who, without any title, have taken up their 
residence upon it. 

Toronto may boast of a tone of society above that of most pro- 
vincial towns, either here or in Europe. Among the people of 
official rank, there are several who, by their acquirements, talent, 



126 HOCHELAGA; OR, 



and refinement, would be ornaments anywhere. In Canada, and 
in England also, they are too well known to need any commen- 
dation ; their example and influence are proved most useful, by 
the enlightenment and good manners of the residents. The 
standard of character, the domestic arrangements, and habits of 
the people, are formed strictly on the model of the mother coun- 
try ; they look to her with reverence and affection ; well may she 
be proud of their loyalty, and encourage their love. 

There is an indescribable pleasure in finding, four thousand 
miles away from our own dear land, a place like this, the healthy 
and vigorous child, — with every feature of its parent marked 
upon its face, every family trait developed in its character. We 
greet it as the hope of" England in the New World." 

May the day of severance be far distant ! But, perhaps, in the 
long future, when grown to sturdy and independent manhood, it 
may become expedient that there should be a separate household 
for the old and the young, and that with a hearty blessing and a 
friendly farewell they should part — let them then part — but in 
love. I am convinced that this fair Canada may grow great 
enough to be a balance of power on the American continent, un- 
disturbed by rabble license, uncursed by the withering crime of 
slavery, undishonored by repudiation, unstained by a parent's 
blood. 

Just now I was on the point of entering into a minute descrijv 
tion of King Street and Parliament House, government offices 
and jail, baths and hotels, when it luckily flashed across my mind 
that, as I was not writing a guide-book, I had better let them 
alone. Having spared you that, pray excuse me for mentioning 
that laborers get five shillings a day, and the good things of this 
life for about half the prices of the English markets. Many of 
the roads in the neighborhood are made of planks ; the levels are 
very judiciously managed, and the draught on them is but little 
heavier than on a railroad ; you are spared the noise and rattling 
of the somewhat clumsy vehicles. Numerous steam-boats en- 
liven the wharves, flying in all directions during the season of 
navigation. They, like most of those in Canada and America, 
are very good; one of them, the " Chief Justice Robinson," is 
quite a model of neatness and comfort ; the deck is carpeted, fur- 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 127 

nished with sofas and arm-chairs, the sides hung round with 
paintings, and ornamented with well occupied stands of gay flow- 
ers, while she is as safe and speedy as the smokiest and dirtiest 
of her sisterhood. 

In this steamer I crossed the lake, and went seven miles up 
the Niagara river, to Queenstown, thence to the falls, eight 
miles, by a railway of very primitive construction : it despises 
levels, is settled down into deep ruts, and unconfined by fences 
on either side. We were perched on a quaint old coach, our 
locomotives three meek horses, and it certainly was not an ex- 
press train. Our lateral movements on the rough track rivalled 
those forward in quantity, and much exceeded them in rapidity. 

This district was the scene of several very bloody and gallant 
actions between the English and Americans during the late war ; 
they seem to have been highly satisfactory to both parties, for 
each claims the victory. They have contended for the laurels 
during the last thirty years with the same pertinacity with which 
they disputed the battle ground, and with the same doubtful 
result. One thing, however, is certain — that the Americans 
failed in making any serious permanent impression on any part 
of the country. Perhaps the mutual injury was about equal, 
their loss of Buffalo being balanced by that of Little York on the 
side of the English ; each had to mourn over the graves of many 
worthy and brave soldiers. Sir Isaac Brock was the most re- 
markable of these ; he commanded the British force at the battle 
of Queenstown, where he fell : the Canadian Parliament erected 
a pillar to his memory on the scene of his victory, which, as I 
have before mentioned, was blown up by one of the Sympa- 
thizers, at the time of their invasion of Canada. 

Queenstown is but a poor place : being on the frontier, it has 
frequently suffered in the struggles between the two countries ; 
the inhabitants are now about five hundred in number. At the 
entrance of the Niagara river, or, as it should be called, the con- 
tinuation of the St. Lawrence, is Fort Niagara, now a place of 
considerable strength and importance. I there saw, for the first 
time, the flag of the Stars and Stripes, and the soldiers in their 
grey uniforms. On the English side Fort Massassaqua guards 
the river, behind it is the town of Niagara, with its docks and 



128 HOCHELAGA; OR, 



foundry, four churches, and two thousand people. At the west- 
ern end of Lake Ontario, is Burlington Bay, containing the towns 
of Dundas and Hamilton ; both of them are rapidly growing — 
the latter has five thousand inhabitants, and much commercial 
enterprise. The waters of the Niagara river are of a peculiarly 
beautiful color, the blue is as clear and soft as that of a summer's 
sky. Up to Queenstown the banks are low, and the country 
around flat ; thence to the falls the flood lies between high, abrupt 
clifls. On the Canada side, rich tracts of park-like scenery ex- 
tend for many miles inland ; a great portion is cleared, but there 
still remain many of the magnificent old forest trees, which once 
sheltered the people of the departed race. The surface of the 
country rises in steppes of good table-land, from but little above 
the level of the lake, to the undulating grounds which spread 
about the falls, nearly three hundred feet higher. 

We stopped several times on the way from our landing at 
Queenstown ; the noise of the falls was not perceptible till within 
two miles — while our clumsy rail-carriage was in motion, its 
rattle had a complete monopoly of our anxious ears. The night 
was very calm, but, as we were rather below on our approach, 
the noise seemed lost among the tall trees that surrounded the 
road. We arrived at the hotel, which was on the Canada side, 
but kept by an American, according to American customs. For- 
tunately, it was dark ; I was very glad not to have had the first 
view dimmed by twilight. A great many people were staying in 
the house, principally Americans ; they walked about under the 
verandahs and danced till twelve at night. The musician was a 
very gaily-dressed negro, who did good service on his violin, with 
the instructions to the dancers added in a vocal accompaniment : 
he entered so completely into the spirit of his office, that he some- 
times pirouetted about, to assist precept by example. This valu- 
able man also fulfilled the functions of barber and head waiter to 
the hotel. 

By painting and by description, Niagara had been familiar to 
me for years, as no doubt it has been to every one else : so much 
has been said and written on the subject, that any attempt to 
throw new light upon it is hopeless. I, therefore, mean, with 
simple egotism, to give the impressions it made upon myself. 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 129 



The sight was precisely what I expected — the sensations it 
caused totally ditferent. I did not start with an exclamation of 
awe, neither did I only look upon it as " an everlasting fine 
* water-privilege.' " I thought it a magnificent cataract, far 
grander than anything I had before seen, and more beautiful. I 
sat down on the turf near Table Rock, whence there is the best 
view, with something approaching to disappointment on my mind, 
that, after all, it should be only a " magnificent cataract." But 
as I looked and listened, the eye and ear, as it were, matured 
into the power of fit perception ; then, admiration and astonish- 
ment, and at last almost confusion, came upon me ; sight and 
sound seemed to have joined their strength and merged into a 
vague impression — vague, but of mighty force. A passing 
stranger addressed some question to me, which aroused me ; I 
found that, unconscious of the lapse of time, I had been for hours 
staring at the great wonder. 

I got up reluctantly and proceeded to the nuisance of sight- 
seeing, but looked back every now and then as though fearing 
that I should lose the rest of the grand spectacle ; for I could not 
but fancy that it was some strange and transient phenomenon, or 
a display got up by some enormous eflfort for the moment. 
When night came, it seemed reckless waste to keep it going 
still, while its glorious beauty was hidden from mortal view. 

It was not till increasing distance freed me from its influence, 
and when thought returned, that I knew it had been going on 
yesterday, last year, for a century, for tens of centuries — back to 
that deep abyss of the past, on which sceptic science — presump- 
tuous though feeble — has dared to shed a dim and sinister light, 
of only sufficient strength to show, that the depths must remain 
for ever — inscrutable as profound. 

Now, the neighborhood of this great wonder is overrun with 
every species of abominable fungus — the growth of rank bad 
taste ; with equal luxuriance on the English and American sides, 
Chinese pagoda, menagerie, camera obscura, museum, watch- 
tower, wooden monument, sea gardens, " old curiosity shops." 
A boy handed me a slip of paper, on which were printed some 
stanzas of astounding magnificence signed " Almira," much in 



130 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



the favorite style of the poet laureate to " Moses and Son." I 
cannot refrain from giving a short quotation : 

*' Would ye fain steal a glance o'er life's dark sea. 

And gaze though trembling on eternity ? 

Would ye look out, look down, where God hath set 

His mighty signet ? Come — come higher yet, 

To the Pagoda's utmost height ascend, 

And see earth, air, and sky in one alembic blend !'* 

*' The Pagoda is now open to visitors and perfectly secure. * * * 
Admittance 25 cents * * * 1st April, 1845." 

One of the disagreeable necessities of the tourist is to go under 
the falls to Termination Rock. Arrayed in a well worn suit of 
oil-cloth, with hard, dirty shoes and no stockings, I was weak 
enough to submit to it. The left hand grasped firmly by a negro 
guide, I shuffled sideways along a narrow, shingly path cut out 
of the side of the cliff, the main sheet of water falling far clear 
of me ; the dense cloud of spray soon soaks into every pore, and 
obscures the sight, while the tremendous noise makes hearing 
equally impossible. Every now and then, I trod upon an eel, 
and he would twist his limber, slimy body over my bare instep, 
perhaps into the shoe, where there was ample room, and escape 
through some of its holes. I then descended some rough steep 
steps, went a little further and stood triumphant, but very cold, 
upon Termination Rock ; next I groped for a stone to carry back 
with me to the upper world, that it may descend to my admiring 
posterity — if I be ever so blessed — as a memorial of the wisdom 
and courage of their ancestor. 

There is not the least danger in this particularly nasty and 
disagreeable performance ; ladies frequently go through it ; their 
dress for the purpose is of the same material, but rather more vo- 
luminous than ours. With all due deference to the fair adven- 
turers, I do not think it an exploit at all suited to their sex ; there 
is nothing whatever to reward the trouble and nuisance of the 
visit, and little to boast of in having accomplished it. 

I then went up the bank of the river above the falls, to see the 
rapids ', they are very fine, but not so striking as the Cedars. 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 131 

Next I was rowed in a boat as near as possible to the foot of the 
falls, got rather wet, then crossed to the American side, climbed 
the vile Pagoda, went to Iris Island — in short, looked at Niagara 
from above, peered under, stared up, glanced sideways ; and at 
Termination I had actually examined the back of it. This is all 
worse than useless, as well might you do the same with Raphael's 
" Transfiguration ;" as there is but one perfect view for a paint- 
ing, there is but one for Niagara. See it from Table Rock, gaze 
thence upon it for hours — days if you like — and then go home. 
As for the Rapids, Cave of the Winds, Burning Springs, &c., 
&c., you might as well enter into an examination of the gilt 
figures on the picture frame, as waste your time on them. 

About three miles below, is the Whirlpool, a large, deep sweep, 
hollowed out of the cliff in a bend of the river. Sometimes there 
is a horrible interest connected with this place ; the bodies of 
people who have been lost over the falls have floated round and 
round this dismal hole for days together ; carried on the surface 
by the whirling eddies back to the main stream ; sucked down, 
to emerge again in a few minutes and continue their ghastly jour- 
ney : the rocks around are abrupt, the water unapproachable by 
boats ; so they must remain, till decomposed, or by some chance 
swell of the waters they vary their course a little, and get far 
enough into the main stream to be borne away by its force. 

About once in ten years, generally in January or the beginning 
of February, the ice takes all across at the foot of the falls, 
making a complete bridge from one shore to the other. A great 
frozen mass, of irregular shape, is formed on the edge next to the 
cataract, from masses of ice being forced under the surface and 
raising it up, and from the accumulation of frozen spray ; when 
this breaks up in the spring, the concussion of the severed frag- 
ments, driven together by the force of the waters, rivals the noise 
of the falls themselves. In a mild winter, the ice of Lake Erie 
sometimes breaks up, large pieces float over the falls, they are 
smashed to atoms, and rise to the surface in immense quantities 
of a substance like wetted snow ; a severe night's frost binds this 
into a solid mass, and forms a large portion of the bridge. 

The rise and fall of the great body of the water is very slight 
at any season ; but, as you watch the plunging stream, it seems 



132 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



to tumble down sometimes in gushes, as if an additional influence 
came into play every now and then. About tlie centre of the 
Horseshoe, or Canadian Fall, there is a clear unbroken spout of 
water twenty feet in depth before its leap ; for seventy feet below, 
it continues deep, pure blue, thence to its gulf it is shrouded in 
a soft spray which waves like a plume in the wind, at times 
tinted with all the prismatic colors the sun can bestow : when the 
weather is very calm, this beautiful mist rises to a great height 
into the air, becoming finer by degrees, till no longer perceptible. 
The falls on the American side of Iris island are a hundred and 
sixty-four feet high : the Canadian or Horseshoe, a hundred and 
fifty-eight, but the latter are about twice the breadth, and dis- 
charge four times the body of water. 

A learned English professor, who has lately published a most 
valuable work on the Geology of America, states it to be his con- 
viction, that the falls recede about one foot in the year ; that pro- 
bably they remained stationary for many ages at the whirlpool, 
when a fresh start of some fifteen thousand years at the present 
rate of travelling, brought them to where they now are. Within 
forty years, since they have been more closely observed, there 
has been a considerable change in their shape ; indeed slight 
variations constantly occur. It is also the opinion of the author 
I have quoted that they have diminished considerably in height, 
probably a hundred feet, but that there is no reason to suppose 
them to have been formerly in one unbroken fall, as they now 
are. 

The first mention made of these falls was by Father Henne- 
pin, a French missionary, in 1675. I will give a part of his 
quaint and exaggerated description : " Betwixt the Lake Ontario' 
and the Lake Erie, there is a vast and prodigious cadence of 
water, which falls down after a surprising and extraordinary 
manner, insomuch that the universe does not afford its parallel. 
This wonderful downfall is about six hundred feet high, and 
composed of two great cross streams and two falls of water, with 
an island sloping across the middle of it. The waters which fall 
from this horrible precipice do foam and boil after the most hide- 
ous manner imaginable, making an outrageous noise more terri- 
ble than that of thunder ; for when the wind blows out of the 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 133 



south this dismal roaring may be heard more than fifteen leagues 
off; the Niagara river at the foot of the falls is more than a quar- 
ter of a league broad." 

There is already a sad list of fearful accidents at this place, 
though such a short time frequented by civilized man ; the last 
few years have been fertile in them ; perhaps the most horrible 
of all was one which happened in May, 1843. A Canadian of 
the village of Chippewa was engaged in dragging sand from the 
river three miles above the falls ; seated on his cart, he backed 
the horses into the water, ignorant of the depth ; it sank, but a 
box on which he sat, floated, and was soon driven by a high wind 
off from the land into the strong but smooth current ; he, being 
unable to swim, clung to the box. A boat was on the shore, but 
by the mismanagement of the bystanders it was let loose into the 
stream, and floated past the unhappy man, empty and useless. 
There was no other for two miles lower down ; beyond that, aid 
was impossible. The people on the beach, instead of hastening 
to get a boat ready in' time, below, ran along the shore talking to 
him of help, which their stupidity rendered of no avail ; he knew 
that he was doomed — " I'm lost ! I'm lost !" sounded fainter and 
fainter as the distance widened. This dreadful protraction lasted 
nearly an hour, the stream being very slow : at first, he scarcely 
appears to move, but the strength increases, the waters become 
more troubled, he spins about in the eddies, still clinging with the 
energy of despair to his support. He passes close by an island, 
so close that the box touches and stops for one moment, but the 
next, it twists slowly round and is sucked into the current again. 
The last hope was that a boat might be ready on the shore at 
Chippewa ; it was vain, there were none there but frail canoes 
all high upon the beach ; by the time One of them was launched 
the boldest boatman dared not embark. 

For, but just above the falls, they saw the devoted victim, 
whirled round and round in the foaming waves, with frantic 
gestures appealing for aid ; his frightful screams pierced still 
through the dull roar of the torrent — " I'm lost ! I'm lost !" 

He is now in the smooth flood of blue, unbroken water, twenty 
feet in depth, the centre of the Canadian fall. Yet another moment, 
he has loosed his hold ; his hands are clasped as if in prayer ; 



134 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



his voice is silent. Smoothly, but quick as an arrow's flight, he 
glides over and is seen no more, nor any trace of him from that 
time. 

On Iris island is found one of the very few burying grounds 
which are knov/n to have belonged to the departed race ; a con- 
siderable number of skeletons have been dug up there, all placed 
in a standing or sitting posture. When this place, of such diffi- 
cult and perilous access, was chosen by the simple Indians, it must 
have been from a strong wish that the precious ashes should remain 
undisturbed. None can now ever know how long they have 
slept the sleep which even the roar of Niagara cannot awaken. 

There was one splendid moonlight night during my stay. At 
eleven o'clock I went off to Table Rock, took up the favorite 
position, looked and wondered. There were no boring guides or 
chattering visitors to mar the effect : the light was not sufficiently 
strong to reveal the fungi of the place ; I was opposite to the 
Great Fall, saw it and nothing else ; unless occasionally, when 
my eyes followed the soft faint spray, " the everlasting incense of 
the waters," which rose up against the deep blue sky, undisturbed 
by the slightest breath of wind. Through its delicate gauze the 
bright stars twinkled with undimmed lustre, while the full 
moon shining down, tinted it with the tender shades of the lunar 
rainbow. 

But, unsoftened by this fair coloring, unsoothed by the gentle 
silence of the autumn night, the great torrent roared, plunged, 
and dashed over its leap, in stillest calm as in wildest tempest, 
the same ever. The fresh springs of life and feeling must be 
thoroughly dried up in the heart of the man who does not know a 
new sensation when he looks upon Niagara. 

I found by looking at my watch that in apparently a very short 
time it had got very late ; the spray and the damp grass had wet 
me ; the night air chilled me, " foolish old man that I am :" so> 
coughing, and drawing my woollen comforter tighter round my 
throat, I turned towards the hotel, stopping many a time to look 
back. But little space for sleep was left me before the morning 
sun warmed into life the noise and bustle of the house. — My 
journey recommenced that day. 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 135 



CHAPTER XII. 

Geography of Canada — Resources — Trade, 

Canada extends from Gasp^, in the gulf of St. Lawrence in the 
east, to Sandwich, at the end of Lake Erie in the west, a distance, 
as the crow flies, of about eleven hundred miles. Throughout 
this whole length, the shores are washed, to the west by Lake 
Huron, to the south-east by Lakes Erie and Ontario, and the St. 
Lawrence as the boundary to the forty-fifth parallel of latitude ; 
thence the great river flows through the centre of the province to 
the sea. From the Indian village of St. Regis, where this parallel 
meets the St. Lavvrence, it is the boundary for three degrees 
eastward, to Hereford ; thence the division between Canada and 
the United States is an irregular line in a north-easterly direction, 
partly regulated by the summits of a range of heights, and partly 
merely arbitrary, to about forty-seven and a half degrees north 
latitude, and within thirty miles of the St. Lawrence ; from this 
point it turns in a very curved form till it meets the boundary 
line of New Brunswick, from which province Canada is separated, 
at the eastern extremity, by the Bay of Chaleurs and the river 
Ristigouchi. 

To the north no boundaries have been traced between Canada 
and the Hudson's Bay territory, nor is any ever likely to be. 

Many magnificent rivers flow into the St. Lawrence in its 
course : the principal are the Jaquenay and the Ottawa from the 
north, and the Richelieu from the south. As yet but a small 
portion of this great country is even partially peopled ; the 
inhabitants are merely crowded along the banks of the great 
river, its tributaries, and the lakes. East of Montreal lies the 
widest part of the occupied lands, but nowhere do they reach the 
breadth of more than a hundred miles. Extensive though may 
be this splendid province of Canada, it is yet very different indeed 



136 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



from what it originally was. In the fourteenth year of the reign 
of George the Third, the boundaries •the province of Quebec — 
as it was then called, were defined by an act of the Imperial 
Parliament. By that it included a great extent of what is now 
New England, and the whole of the country between the state of 
Pennsylvania, the River Ohio and the Mississippi, north to the 
Hudson's Bay territory, where now a great portion of the ricii 
and flourishing western states add their strength to the neighbor- 
ing republic. By gradual encroachments on one hand and con- 
cessions on the other, by the misconstruction of treaties and 
divisions of boundaries, have these vast and valuable tracts of 
country been separated from the British empire. 

Throughout all the extent of Canada, from east to west, nature 
and art have bestowed extraordinary facilities of navigation. The 
shores of the waters and a large portion of the interior are fertile, 
in some places to an uncommon degree. All the land was 
originally covered with a magnificent forest, but, acre by acre, a 
considerable extent of this has been cleared away, and replaced 
by towns, villages, and corn-fields. There are no very high 
mountains, but it can boast of the largest lakes in the world, 
and of Niagara. The country seems deficient in coal and not 
very plentifully supplied with minerals; but in its agricultural 
capabilities it is not inferior to any part of the old or new 
Continent. 

From the north-eastern point, chilled by the winds of the At- 
lantic, to the south-western, five degrees lower and approaching 
the centre of the Continent, there is considerable variety of cli- 
mate. However, in all parts the winters are very severe, and 
the heat of summer but little inferior to that of the tropics. 
Nearly everything that grows in England flourishes here also, 
and the country possesses various productions which nature has 
denied to us. The climate has in a slight degree changed since 
the tolerably extended cultivation, but to this day Quebec must 
rank among the coldest and hottest places in the civilized world. 
In spring and autumn the variations of the temperature are great 
and sudden ; at noon you will fain hide from the heat of the sun, 
and at midnight the earth is bound up in frost. 

To people naturally healthy the climate will be found healthy 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 137 

too, but to the rheumatic, consumptive, and feeble, it is a severe 
trial. It is remarked that a great number of children die in in- 
fancy in this country, particularly among the French-Canadian 
population ; the weak in years seem injuriously affected as well 
as the weak in constitution. 

With the exception of a very few bitterly cold days in winter, 
that season is far from being disagreeable ; the pure, dry, frosty air 
has at times a most exhilarating effect, and the blue, unclouded sky 
above relieves the eye from the almost painful monotony of the 
snowy earth. The long duration of this sleep of nature is how- 
ever very wearisome ; after the third or fourth month, the long- 
ing for green fields and leafy woods becomes intense and harass, 
ing, and the frozen pleasures of the winter have lost all their 
novelty and zest. While the snow is melting away in spring, 
the weather is usually beautiful and very warm ; but the roads 
and fields are in an indescribably disagreeable state, and travel- 
ling is almost impossible. Then, when the young summer fairly 
sets in, nothing can be more charming than the climate — bright 
and warm during the day, with the air still pure and clear as 
ever ; and the transition from bare brown fields and woods to 
verdure and rich green foliage is so rapid that you can almost 
fancy you see its progress ; while, at night, light frosts refresh 
the atmosphere and brace the nerves relaxed by the delirious 
warmth of the day. 

To this succeed July and August, almost terrible in their in- 
tense heat ; the roads and rocks at mid-day so hot as to be pain- 
ful to the touch, and the strength of the direct rays of the sun 
even greater than in the tropics ; but the night always brings a 
re-invigorating coolness, and the breezes of the morning are as 
fresh and tempered as in our own favored land. The autumn 
— or the " Fall " as they love to call it here — rivals the spring in 
its healthy and moderate warmth, and far excels it in the beauty 
of the coloring which it bestows. 

The population returns of Canada are not by any means ac- 
curate, the number of emigrants each year, with the uncertainty 
of their remaining in the province, adds to the difficulty of arriv- 
ing at a correct estimate. I believe, from the information I have 
been able to obtain from the best sources, that about . fourteen 



13S HOCHELAGA; OR, 



hundred thousand is the number of British subjects in this coun- 
try ; seven hundred and fifty thousand in the Lower, and six hun- 
dred and fifty thousand in the Upper Province. Of these, five 
hundred and fifty thousand are of French descent, the remainder 
of the Anglo-Celtic race, with about six thousand Indians. The 
population has hitherto doubled itself in about every twenty-five 
years. 

The annual average number of emigrants for the last fifteen 
years, has been twenty-five thousand, but it is supposed that a 
large portion of these have unadvisedly passed on to the United 
States ; some have since returned to Canada, others soon went to 
rest in the pestilential western marshes, while others have been 
successful. But in Canada, with common regularity and indus- 
try, all are successful : the healthy climate spares them their 
vigor for labor ; land is cheaper and hardly less fertile : there 
are no taxes ; the value of agricultural produce is greater in 
their markets than on the banks of the Mississippi ; and there is 
no Lynch Law. 

The late Lord Durham, in his celebrated Report, delighted to 
extol the prosperity of our Republican neighbors in contrast to 
the state of our fellow subjects. A Select Committee of the 
Upper Canada House of Assembly drew up a counter-report to 
this, in which they indignantly, and with reason, deny the sweep- 
ing statements of the High Commissioner. I extract the follow- 
ing from the Committee's Report. 

" Having first described the surpassing prosperity of the United 
States, for the purpose of contrasting it with the poverty and in- 
feriority of these colonies, his Lordship proceeds to state : — ' On 
the side of both the Canadas, and also of New Brunswick and 
Nova Scotia, a widely scattered population, poor, and apparently 
unenterprising, though hardy and industrious, separated from each 
other by tracts of intervening forest, without towns and markets, 
almost without roads, living in mean houses, deriving little more 
than a rude subsistence from ill-cultivated land, and seemingly 
incapable of improving their condition, present the most instruc- 
tive contrast to their enterprising and thriving neighbors on the 
American side.' Let the farmers, of all political parties, residing 
in the districts fronting on the St. Lawrence, the owners of the 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 139 

extensive, beautiful, and well-cultivated lands on the Bay of 
Quinte, in the district of Newcastle, the Home, Gore, Niagara, 
London, and western districts, read this degrading account, and 
ask themselves whether they would feel perfectly safe in submit- 
ting their future political fate, and that of their children, to the 
dogmas of a man who has so grossly misstated their character 
and condition." 

To the emigrant from the British Islands, there is, perhaps, no 
place in the world offering a better settlement than the eastern 
townships of Lower Canada. There, in his log hut, with his wife 
and children round him to cheer his labor, he may speedily cut 
out his independence from the magnificent forests, and possess the 
fertile land : in less than tv/elve months of patient toil enough is 
cleared for the production of sufficient potatoes and corn to place 
him beyond the reach of want, and set him in the road to com- 
petence. The first year is the difficulty, — often a disheartening 
and almost intolerable struggle. 

In Upper Canada also the prospects of the settler are not less 
encouraging. The Canada Company published a statement a 
few years ago of the condition of the people at the settlement of 
Goderich ; in 1829 was the first commencement ; in 1840 six 
thousand people had established themselves there, and made im- 
provements in the lands, and acquired live stock to the amount of 
£242,287 ; nearly half of this was in the possession of families 
who had originally nothing, or, at most, some few of them had 
ten pounds to start with ; the remainder was accumulated by 
people who had been slightly better off in the world. Most of 
the first settlers have already paid out also the full extent of their 
purchase money, and are now freeholders of the land. 

With a sufficient capital and extent of land under cultivation 
to make it worth while to devote his time to it, a man who under- 
stood it would at once be able to live in comfort, and make money 
on a farm. The French-Canadian gentleman, however, thinks it 
beneath his dignity, and trusts everything to a subaltern ; and the 
Englishman generally expends so much of his capital in the pur- 
chase of the land and stock, that, for years afterwards, he is crip- 
pled in the means of working his resources. 

Horses and other cattle, though hardy and valuable in their 



140 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



way, are far inferior to the English breed, and not improved by a 
recent adnnixture with American blood. In Lower Canada live 
stock are very expensive in their maintenance during the long 
winters, and are usually miserably poor and thin ; in short, but 
just kept from starving, till food becomes plentiful in the spring. 

The importance of the trade of the St. Lawrence to England 
is not to be estimated solely by the value of the goods exchanged, 
though, even in that point of view, it is very considerable ; the 
nature of the productions of Canada sent to the British islands, 
requires an immense bulk of shipping, and employs a great num. 
ber of the very best sailors. The inhabitants of this province 
consume a greater proportion of English goods than any people 
in the world, excepting those of Australia. The Canadian pur- 
chases nearly four times as much of the produce of British in- 
dustry as the citizen of the United States; in return he has 
hitherto obtained highly remunerating prices in our markets for 
everything he can send us, and in any quantity. 

The tariff of the United States of course acts against the colo- 
nies, as well as against England ; but it is obvious that with the 
very inefficient preventive force they possess, it must be a dead 
letter along twelve hundred miles of a frontier, a large part of 
which is forest or navigable water. A great deal of contraband 
trade with the northern parts of America is carried on through 
Canada, but not to such an extent as might be expected from its 
being greatly profitable, and with very slight risk of loss. It 
would seem that here the smuggler created lor tlie " irrepressible 
energies of commerce" an outlet made necessary by the absurd 
and mischievous tariff. Demoralizing as such a trade must be, 
it seems almost inevitable. People and capital alone are wanted 
in this country ; the springs of wealth are endless. 

I have mentioned elsewhere that a great panic was caused in 
the Canada timber trade by the diminution of protection for colo- 
nial produce ; for the first year from this alarm, there was a great 
falling off ill the quantity exported ; the next, however, rallied 
considerably, and the export is now one third more than when 
this step towards free trade was taken. On the other hand, it is 
a very singular and almost unaccountable fact, that the quantity 
of corn and flour sent to England since Canada has obtained 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 141 



nearly a monopoly in that market, is considerably less than it was 
in times when there was no peculiar enactment in its favor. 

At this moment, opinion in Canada is very much divided on 
the subject of the probable loss of their exclusive advantages in 
the English corn market. The agricultural portion of the com- 
munity are generally very much alarmed, fearing a great fall in 
prices at home, and a consequent depreciation in the value of 
their produce ; they talk of ruin — waste, untilled lands, and all 
sorts of dreary things. Again, some of the timber-merchants, in 
breathless terror, cry out that the relaxation of duties on foreign 
timber must at once drive them to bankruptcy, altogether forget, 
ting their increased prosperity since the lato change. The more 
enlightened and practical of the mercantile men hail this announce- 
ment of free trade with pleasure, and triumphantly quote the facts 
which the last few years have given, as conclusive in its favor. 

The present is, beyond all doubt, the time of Canada's greatest 
prosperity : from the highest to the lowest — merchant, farmer, 
tradesman, laborer-^their hands are full of business, their profits 
and wages ample ; there is scarcely a shadow for the discontented 
to lay hold of. The country has only now begun to arrive at thai 
degree of maturity, when trade takes its great start. We should 
recollect that English Canada is more than a century younger 
than the trading districts of the United States ; it is unfair to 
compare their progress in commerce hitherto, for till very 
recently the conditions of this country were such as to render the 
former merely anxious for, and busied in the support of life, the 
primitive pursuits of husbandry being the only occupation of the 
people. As numbers increased and towns enlarged, wealth and 
intelligence were brought to bear, and the last five, ten, fifteen 
years, sliow a change in, these provinces almost incredible. 

Within the longest of those periods, the populations of Quebec 
and Montreal, the two principal trading towns, have nearly 
doubled ; numbers of people have risen from humble circum- 
stances to affluence ; handsome shops, with plate-glass windows, 
adorned with costly goods, replace the small and obscure stores ; 
the roads, bridges, and canals, ships, and steamers, have improved 
and multiplied in a most extraordinary manner. This is but the 
commencement ; the impulse is only now fairly at work ; a few 



142 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



years hence, the progress will be fur greater; the feeble time of 
infancy is past, the first difficulties over, and this vigorous people 
start, confident in their resources and energy, every sail filled 
with the favoring breezes of prosperity. 

There is at present an immense prize to be contended for be- 
tween Canada and the United States — the carrying trade for the 
produce of the west. On one side, the St. Lawrence and its 
splendid artificial communication, on the other, the Erie Canal 
and the Hudson River, offer their channels for its use. To the 
first nature has given a decided advantage ; the screw-propelled 
steamboats, laden on the far shores of Lake Superior, can pass, 
with but slight delay from locks, to Montreal or Quebec, or 
indeed to Europe ; while through the narrow passage of the Erie 
Canal, the frequent locks and the transhipment of the cargo 
must ever be a great embarrassment. By a bold and judicious 
reduction of the tolls on the Canadian waters, they will become 
the chief — as they always were the natural — outlet for this 
trade ; and its passage will speedily enrich their shores. Some 
short-sighted people urge that these tolls cannot be reduced, since 
they hardly pay as it is ; but it is obvious that as long as this 
route is made the more costly of the two, the commerce will flow 
through the other channel. The system, therefore, should be to 
reduce the Canadian Canal expenses to an extent that would 
secure its being the cheaper line ; then the vast quantity of traffic 
would remunerate at almost any price. The advantages of the 
St. Lawrence over the Erie Canal are amply sufficient to counter- 
balance the superior position of New York to Quebec or Montreal 
as a sea-port ; although an exaggerated and fallacious idea of the 
perils of the river navigation of the latter adds much to the 
expense of insurance. 

Each year enhances the difficulty of the supply of timber, to 
a certain extent ; by the banks of the streams and rivers within 
a moderate distance in all directions, the finer trees have already 
been cleared off, and the lumberers are now obliged to drag the 
fruits of their labor for a long way through the bush, or else to 
ascend hundreds of miles to the yet unspoiled forests of the 
interior. But though the difficulties increase, the demand and 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 143 

the number of people employed increases too, and there is no 
danger of any failure in the supply for ages. 

Three times the former quantity of timber from the Baltic 
reaches England since the reduction of the duties : this, which 
the Canadians at first imagined would be their ruin, has on the 
contrary much increased the demand for their produce. In house 
and ship-building, Baltic and American timber are both required 
for different parts of the structure, and, since the former has 
been so considerably cheapened, these operations have increased 
so as to call for a far greater quantity of the latter than was for- 
merly used ; while the advantages to the builder and tenant in 
England are evident from the great diminution of the cost. 

Canada is totally free from direct taxation, except of course for 
municipal purposes. The revenue for the year 1845 was 
£430,000 sterling ; four-fifths of this is derived from customs, 
the remainder from excise licenses, proceeds of public works, 
and territorial and casual sources. A duty of five per cent, is 
levied on English goods entering the province, and from ten to 
fifteen per cent, on foreign ; on these latter there is also generally 
an imperial duty imposed. About £115,000 sterling of this in- 
come is devoted to the payment of the interest of the debt guar- 
anteed by the British Government, contracted for the purpose of 
making the great works by which the internal communications 
have been improved. 

Canada defrays all the expenses of her own civil government 
and judicial establishment. The naval and military forces, and 
the cost of works for the defence of the country, are paid from 
the imperial coffers ; from these sources and the private expendi- 
ture of the individuals employed, a sum of more than half a 
million sterling is annually poured into the colony. The flowing 
in of a continual stream of money to this amount, is of course a 
very important element of prosperity. Not only are the inhabit- 
ants protected without any cost, but this large sum helps to keep 
the balance of trade in their favor, and is circulated to enrich 
them. 

From the great number of opportunities of profitable invest- 
ments, and from capital not being as yet much accumulated, it 
commands a far higher rate of interest on the best security than 



144 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 

tp ■ ^ 

can be obtained in England. The legal rate is six percent., and 
this can be obtained with undoubted safety. 

Manufactures on a small scale have been tried and are still in 
progress in several parts of Canada : they are fairly remunera- 
tive ; but surely, in a young and thinly populated country, with 
such immense unemployed agricultural resources, such applica- 
tion of labor is an economical mistake. Last year England 
would have purchased any quantity of corn from this country at 
a high price, but a comparatively small supply was produced ; 
I have no doubt that it would advantage the colony infinitely were 
every tailor and shoemaker at the plough, and the necessary 
articles of their labor supplied from England. Last year, in 
Lower Canada, there were returned more than three thousand 
manufactories, two-thirds of these were mills for grain and other 
purposes, the remainder potasheries, tanneries, breweries, iron- 
works, paper-works, and others. Canada has every natural ca- 
pability for becoming what, without doubt, she will soon be, a 
great agricultural and commercial country ; but any attempt to 
encourage manufactures there, till in a far maturer stage of ad- 
vance, appears vain and preposterous. 

The post-office of Canada has not had any share in the great 
improvements recently introduced into that department in Eng- 
land ; the old, exorbitant rates of charge are still retained, to the 
immense inconvenience of mercantile and social affairs, and, I 
really believe, to the great injury also of the revenue, for the 
system of sending letters by private hand is carried on almost 
openly and very extensively. A letter from a distant part of 
Upper Canada to Quebec costs twice as much as it does to Lon- 
don, the rates from England being uniform to all parts of this 
country ; also newspapers, passing through the post-office in the 
colony, are each charged a halfpenny. The transmission and 
delivery of mails is far from being happily arranged, and is often 
attended with uncertainty and delay. A vigorous effort is, I un- 
derstand, now making in the Provincial Parliament to remedy 
these very vexatious and harassing inconveniences. 

It must be acknowledged that hitherto there has not been quite 
so much energy and speculative adventure in Canada as in the 
United States. New and untried channels of trade are examined 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 145 

for a long time before they are embarked inj efforts are rarely 
made to open fresh markets, or try the chance of exporting un- 
usual cargoes. Something of the liabitans^ indolent spirit seems 
to have been infused into the trade of the country : their maxim 
is to do the same as their ancestors did. In Upper Canada, beef 
and pork are very much cheaper than at New York, but the 
Liverpool market receives abundance from the latter and next to 
none from the former. The shores of Lake Superior are in- 
exhaustibly rich in copper ore, but, till quite lately, not the 
weight of a penny of it found its way to Canada. 

I confidently hope, however, that brighter days are to come ; 
the progress of the last few years has done wonders, and aroused 
the spirit of adventure ; Montreal is beginning to display much 
speculative activity, and I do not despair of Quebec being even 
lighted with gas, and supplied with water otherwise than by cart 
and barrel, before any very great length of time has elapsed. 

The fact is that the French population are a dead weight on 
the activity of this lower portion of the magnificent valley of the 
St. Lawrence, and whatever has been done in commercial ad- 
venture, is due to the comparatively very small number of the 
Anglo-Saxon and Celtic races. In matters of general improve- 
ment, docks, bridges, «Sz;c., they have often to encounter even the 
opposition of their inert fellow-subjects. 

The closing of the ports of the River St. Lawrence by ice for 
four or five months in the year is, of course, a great drawback 
from their mercantile advantages, but not so very great as may 
appear at first sight. .During this time the channels of internal 
transport of goods are also frozen up, but the produce of the 
lumberers' winter labors is released in the spring ; the rich crops 
of Upper Canada can be readily shipped in the autumn ; while 
the vessels which leave England early in the year carry out 
what is required for summer use, and those charged with the 
fruits of the harvest come back laden with goods for the ensuing 
winter. 

To show the rapid increase of the trade of this colony, I shall 
give the number of vessels which arrived at and cleared from 
the different sea-ports of the St. Lawrence during certain years. 

PART I. 8 



146 



HOCHELAGA; OR, 



Year. 


Entered. 


Cleared out. 




1825 . 


. 796 . 


. 883 


vessels averaging 350 tons 


1830 . 


. 964 . 


. 1050 




(( 


1835 . 


. 1297 . 


. 1307 




cc 


1840 . 


. 1439 , 


. 1522 




<( 


1845 . 


. 1762 . 


. 1747 




a 



In the last year upwards of twenty-three thousand seamei 
were employed, and thus kept in training in one of the besi 
naval schools in the world. 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 147 



CHAPTER XIII. 

Religion — Education — The Press 

Among the subjects of general observation which suggest them- 
selves in considering the state of any Christian country, the first 
is that of its religion. The influences which it exercises, even 
in a temporal point of view, are so important, that, though one 
were to acknowledge no higher interest than the political state 
and material prosperity, it forces itself upon the attention. 

Thirty years after the cession by France, Canada Was formed 
into a Diocese of the Church of England ; in 1839 this was di- 
vided into two Sees — the eastern, or the Diocese of Quebec, con- 
taining the whole of Lower Canada, is given to the care of the 
Bishop of Montreal ; the western, being all Upper Canada, to 
that of the Bishop of Toronto. These districts are of enormous 
size, each extending about six hundred miles in length, and the 
• incomes attached to them are far from sufficient for the expenses 
which such a charge and rank entail. 

In Canada East, or the diocese of Quebec, there are seventy- 
five clergymen of the Church of England ; in that of Toronto, 
or Canada West, ninety-oric. The incomes of many of these 
gentlemen are miserably small ; some have not more than sixty 
pounds a year, and a large number are allowed no glebe house 
or other residence. But, though their means are so slender, their 
duties are most severe and harassing ; to convey an idea of their 
nature, I will give a short extract from the Bishop of Montreal's 
Visitation journal for the year 1843, printed for the " Society for 
the Propagation of the Gospel." Duties of the clergymen of 
the " Mission " of Masconche — New Glasgow. Sunday morning 
service throughout the year at Masconche, except on the sacra- 
ment days at New Glasgow. Paisley and Kilkenny, four times 
a year each (as also at Masconche) : Sunday afternoon service 



148 HOCHELAGA; OR, 

at Terrebonne, six miles from Masconche ; and New Glasgow, 
twelve miles ; when at the latter, their way is continued to Kil- 
kenny, twelve miles further, on Sunday night, in order to hold 
service there (fortnightly) on Monday ; two miles from the house 
to the Church, and eleven after service to sleep at Paisley, in 
preparation for service there on Tuesday, and so back to Mas- 
conche. Occasional visits from hence to the Nord, forty miles 
off. A great portion of the road in summer is of the worst de- 
scription. Parochial visiting cannot be systematic in such a vast 
extent of scattered charge. 

In the thirty-first year of the reign of George the Third, one 
seventh of all the waste lands was set apart for, as it was worded, 
the " Protestant Church ;" and every sect not Roman Catholic 
has claimed a share and receives it. A late Act of Parliament 
provides for the sale of these " Clergy Reserves " and the distri- 
bution of the funds ; the Church of England is endeavoring to 
obtain the grant of their portion of the lands, for the sale at the 
present time would involve so great a sacrifice as to reduce their 
already very insufficient portion to a mere nothing. A committee 
of the Provincial Parliament has reported favorably on this, but 
as yet the question remains undecided. 

Hitherto the " Society for the Propagation of the Gospel " has 
been the chief support of the Church of England in Canada, as 
well as in the other colonies. The annual income of this society 
has risen, since 1837, from twelve thousand, to forty-seven thou- 
sand pounds ; but this increase, large though it be, is quite insuf- 
ficient to keep pace with the constant new demands for aid. One 
hundred and fifty missionaries have been added during the last 
seven years, and on account of these great expenses, the funds 
of the Society are far from being in a flourishing state. 

In the year 1843, more than fifteen thousand pounds was given 
by this most valuable body, to Canada alone. A Church Society 
was also established in Upper Canada, in 1842 ; the next year its 
income was eighteen hundred pounds, and now it is little short of 
three thousand. Last year, notwithstanding the fires, Quebec 
gave three hundred and seventy pounds to its funds. 

As I stated elsewhere, the census has always been taken under 
great disadvantages, owing to the scattered dwellings of the po- 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 149 

pulation, and to the stupid idea among the lower classes of French 
Canadians, that it was made with a view of taxation. It is 
also impossible to arrive correctly at the number of the mem- 
bers of each different sect, as the people employed are supposed 
in their estimates to have magnified their own at the expense of 
others. I have before me the attainable statistics such as they 
are, but they are so confused and contradictory that one can only 
hope for an approximation to the reality. I believe that the pro- 
portion which the members of the Church of England bear to 
the population of Canada is under one sixth of the whole ; or 
about two hundred and twenty thousand souls. 

For the ministry of these people, spread over twelve hundred 
miles of country, there are only one hundred and sixty-six clergy- 
men. It is impossible not to view with anxiety and care such a 
state of things in this province ; it must be acknowledged with 
pain, that the Colonial office has paid but very little attention to 
this most vital interest of its government. In Lower Canada 
especially, the provision made by the old French Laws for the 
Romish Church, stands out in broad and reproachful contrast to 
our neglect. In a few instances, indeed, salaries from the go- 
vernment are enjoyed by ecclesiastics, but they are limitisd to the 
lives of the present incumbents ; at their death this Church of 
England — Church of the Empire, will be without any peculiar 
support from the state, and only come in for a paltry share, with 
the sects of various denominations. To the minister at present 
entrusted with Colonial affairs, we may look with hope and con- 
fidence that, as far as he may have the power, it will be exerted 
to remedy the deficiencies of the past. 

In the various political troubles which have arisen at different 
times in England and in her colonies, there was one quality in 
which the members of the Church were always conspicuous — 
that of loyalty. Wherever they are found, they are as it were 
a garrison against sedition and rebellion ; every holy spire that 
rises among the dark pine woods of Canada, stands over a strong- 
hold for the British crown ; and every minister who labors in his 
remote and ill-rewarded calling, is a faithful and zealous subject. 
The feelings and interests of loyalty are vitally interwoven with 
the system of the Church . 



150 HOCHELAGA: OR, 



But the state of the Church of England in Canada is not with- 
out its bright side of happy promise ; there are people still alive 
and now not very old, who were confirmed at Quebec by the 
Bishop of Nova Scotia, the first, and at that time the only Colo- 
nial Bishop of the established Church throughout the empire ; 
at the end of the eighteenth century there were only six clergy- 
men in all Canada. Within the last few years, especially under 
the auspices of the present able and excellent Bishop, the pros- 
pects of the Church have much improved ; the labors of the 
missionaries have been ceaseless, and they are rewarded with 
success in their sacred calling, though not by their own worldly 
advancement. Their lives are hard, toilsome, and full of priva- 
tion ; often they live with their families in bare and humble dwell- 
ings, unable from their poverty to keep up the outward appear- 
ances that conduce to worldly consideration, and deprived of the 
comforts and enjoyments to which their place and education enti- 
tle them. Wherever one of these worthy men is established, he 
is a centre, and acts as a stimulus for improvement as far as his 
narrow means go. The Church, in the influence of its fixed and 
steadfast principles, is a happy barrier against the wild and tur- 
bulent enthusiasm of dissent ; in many instances, the various 
sects have joined its fold, to save themselves from their own ex- 
travagances. 

The fantastic and mischievous absurdities of Millerism have 
been widely spread in some portions of Canada ; its apostles are 
chiefly men of little education or character, but many of their 
followers appear sincere and ardent believers. 1 shall again 
quote from the Bishop of Montreal's Visitation Journal. " In the 
meetings of the Millerites, persons acted upon by the vehement 
proclamation of close approaching judgment, enforced by the ex- 
pedients usual in such cases for goading the human mind, fall 
into what are technically called the stmggles, and roll on the floor 
of the meeting-house, striking out their limbs with an excess of 
violence ; all which is understood to be an act of devotion with 
regard to some unconverted individual, who is immediately sent 
for, if not present, that he may witness the process designed for 
his benefit. Females are thus prompted to exhibit themselves, 
and I was credibly informed that, at Hatley, two young girls 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 151 

were thus in the struggles ; the objects of their intercessions being 
two troopers quartered in the village. Revolting as such scenes 
may appear, yet, when mixed up with the awful realities of future 
judgment, they take a prodigious effect in the wilder and more 
sequestered part of a country, upon a large portion of the popular 
mind." 

Fully one half of the population of Canada belong to the 
Church of Rome. The greater part of these are French-Cana- 
dians, the remainder Irish, or their descendants. For Lower 
Canada there are an Archbishop, two Bishops, two Bishop 
Coadjutors, one hundred and seventy-five Churches, twenty Con- 
vents, and ten Colleges, or Seminaries. In Upper Canada there 
are a Bishop, and Bishop Coadjutor, and about seventy Churches. 
The Roman Catholic Church is very richly endowed in this 
country ; the Island of Montreal and many Seigniories of great 
value belong to it ; one, St. Paul's Bay, contains a rich deposit 
of iron ore, also very pure rock iron : this district is not less than 
eighteen miles in extent, and, doubtless, will be a source of great 
wealth in future years ; it contains, besides, valuable springs, 
strongly impregnated with sulphur and arsenic. 

Very large funds are also derived from those who enter the 
convents : the rich are esteemed worthy brides of the Church, but 
the poorer sisters perform the menial offices. The twenty-sixth 
part of the grain grown by the Roman Catholics is always given 
by law to their Church : lately this portion of other produce has 
also been demanded with success, though the claim could not be 
enforced in a Court of Justice. When a parishioner changes his 
faith, this tithe need be no longer paid. The sums levied for 
Church services, masses for the living and the dead, baptisms and 
burials, are also very considerable. Not long since, a case 
occurred of the death of a Roman Catholic whose sons had been 
brought up in the faith of their Protestant mother : anxious to 
pay every mark of respect to their father's memory, they applied 
lo the Priesthood for the usual prayers and ceremonies for a per- 
son of his condition, and the charge for the various services 
amounted to one hundred and twenty pounds. 

With but few exceptions, the Roman Catholic Clergy are very 
respectable in their education and conduct j loyal to the British 



152 HOCHELAGA; OR, 



Crown in the rebellion, they generally opposed the movement as 
much as lay in their power : and, although even their great in- 
fluence was unable altogether to control the misguided people, 
they kept other disafiected portions of the country in peace. 
They look with extreme dislike and apprehension on anything 
tending to bring them under the laws and institutions of the 
United States ; the position of their Irish brethren at Philadelphia 
and elsewhere, is a lesson not thrown away upon them. Besides, 
they are well aware that their immense possessions would 
speedily undergo some new American process, for which an ap- 
propriate and peculiar name would, no doubt, soon be furnished ; 
as have been the words Repudiation, Annexation, to other cha- 
racteristic operations of this original people. 

The French Canadian Roman Catholic Priesthood are natural- 
ly very hostile to the increase and progress of the English Pro- 
testant population, as, added to their national and religious preju- 
dices against them, many farms falling into their hands are freed 
from the tithe to the Church. In the neighborhood of the towns, 
and, indeed, in all the good situations, this process is going on 
with, for them, a most alarming rapidity. The rebellion in 
Lower Canada was, in a measure, against these settlers, and not 
against British rule ; the jealousy of the French Canadian in- 
habitants had then arrived at its height, and broke out in that 
feeble and petulant sedition. The Priesthood are by no means 
free from blame for encouraging this enmity of race, but they 
may be fairly acquitted of disloyalty to the government. 

Among the Roman Catholics in this country, all the lower 
classes, and the females of the upper, are very devout and atten- 
tive to their religious duties ; but among the well-educated men 
there is ditTused not a little of the scoffing spirit of Young France. 
It must, however, be allowed, that the people of all ranks stand 
very high in the scale of morality : indeed, it has now become 
almost a matter of history, when the gentlemen of the law last 
reaped aught from domestic misfortunes brought on by the neg- 
lect of its principles. 

The remnant of the Indians who dwell within the bounds of 
Canada, profess the faith of Rome ; and few are more attentive to 
the external observance of its duties than they are. The squaws 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 153 



are gifted with very sweet voices, and the singing in their rude 
village churches is sometimes charming. 

Among the various sects of Protestant Dissenters, by far the 
most numerous and important are the Presbyterians ; in Lower 
Canada they possess one hundred and forty Presbyteries, in the 
Upper Province nearly double that number. They are deter- 
mined in their distinction from the Established Church, but gene- 
rally by no means bitter in their hostility to it. I find in the 
Visitation Journal of the excellent Bishop of Montreal, already 
quoted, that he was offered hospitality on his tour by some of 
their ministers. This body of Clergy is supported by their share 
of the Clergy Reserves, and the voluntary contributions of their 
congregations. 

I shall not enter into any further notice of the varied, and, un- 
fortunately, numerous shades of opinions and sects, which pride, 
ignorance, fanaticism, and discontent, have spread among this 
portion of the Anglo-Saxon race. With regard to the sectarians 
of Canada, I regret to say that nearly all have united to treat the 
Church of England as a common enemy ; though here it is so 
innocent of the rich temporalities, which at home give virulence 
to their attacks. 

Before I leave the subject of religion in Canada, I would wish 
to observe, with sincere pleasure, on the visitation of the Bishop 
of Montreal, during the summer of 1844, to the Red River set- 
tlement. A most interesting account of this was published in 
London last year, from which I take the following statements. 

The Bishop of Montreal left Quebec in the middle of May, and 
performed his journey of two thousand miles in about six weeks. 
From a little beyond Montreal the whole of the distance was 
travelled in open canoes, up through the rapid waters of the 
Ottawa, and by wild lakes and winding rivers into Lake Huron, 
thence along the northern shore, and by the Manitoulin Islands, 
once sacred to the Great Spirit of the ancient people, through the 
little settlement of Saut Sainte Marie, into the deep and dreary 
Lake Superior ; thence up the Rainy River, over falls of won- 
derful height and beauty, through labyrinths of woody islands, 
and almost unknown lakes, till at length the journey's end was 
reached. 

8* 



154 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



They encamped usually at night, but sometimes, when it was 
fair, the precious breeze was taken advantage of, even through 
the darkness ; large fires were lighted by the tent where they 
rested, but it was very cold at times, and during the day, the 
bright mosquitoes, and other venomous insects, were hard to 
bear. 

Numbers of wild but friendly Indians were met, of fine frame 
and stature, but very low in the scale of human progress ; they 
were willing to assist at the " Portages," and would labor all day 
long for a very trifle, particularly the squaws. Early on a 
Sabbath morning the Bishop reached the settlement, when he saw 
the same people in their Christian state. " Thus, on the morn- 
ing of our blessed Lord's day, we saw them gathering already 
round their pastor, who was before his door ; their children col- 
lecting in the same manner, with their books in their hands, all 
decently clothed from head to foot ; a repose and steadiness in 
their deportment ; at least the seeming indications of a high and 
controlling influence on their character and hearts ; their humble 
dwelling, with the commencement of farms, and cattle grazing in 
the meadow ; the neat modest parsonage or mission-house, with 
its garden attached to it ; and the simple but decent church, with 
the school-house as its appendage, forming the leading objects in 
the picture, and carrying on the face of them the promise of a 
blessing." 

The congregation that day consisted of two hundred and fifty 
Indians, dressed partly in the European manner. The mornkig 
service is performed in English, but the lessons were translated 
into the Indian tongue by the interpreter, as was also the Bishop's 
sermon. About two-thirds of the congregation are said to under- 
stand a simple address in English, and probably soon no other 
language will be required. 

The Bishop considers these Indians to be a thinking and intel- 
ligent people. The man acting as sexton had been a noted 
sorcerer, or " Medecin," of the tribe. The stay of the Visitation 
at the Red River settlement was limited to about three weeks, by 
the necessity of starting in time to finish the arduous journey 
before the setting-in of the winter. The number of persons con- 
firmed was eight hundred and forty-six, and would have been 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 155 

considerably greater, but that a large portion of the people were 
at that time of the year hunting on the Prairies, or busied with 
distant traffic to Hudson's Bay. There were also two ordinations 
for the ministry. There are four Church of England churches 
in the settlement, two of stone and two of wood, also several well- 
attended schools, one a private boarding-school of a superior 
order. 

Besides the numerous and respectable officers of the Hudson's 
Bay Company, there are scattered about the settlement several 
worthy retired factors or traders, some married to European, 
others to Indian wives ; and among some of the residents there is 
far from a deficiency in comforts and habits of refinement. The 
whole population of the Red River Settlement is upwards of five 
thousand ; rather more than half of these are Roman Catholics, 
the remainder belong to the Church of England. Three-fourths 
of the inhabitants are natives or half-breeds, the rest Canadians 
and people from the British islands, with a few foreigners. 
They possess, in plenty, barns, stables, mills, horses, sheep, pigs, 
and black cattle ; the soil is wonderfull}^ fruitful and easy of cul- 
tivation, but all produce is consumed on the spot ; there is no 
market for its sale. Notes printed on colored paper are issued 
by the Company for circulation in the colony. 

The climate at the Red River much resembles that of Quebec, 
but is rather more severe in winter. Acts of violence by the 
Indians against any of the people of the Hudson's Bay Company 
are scarcely known ; the general treatment which they receive 
at the forts is such as to secure their attachment and respect, and 
they draw largely on the charity of the Europeans in times of 
want. The many thousand Indians scattered over these vast 
regions afford a wide field for the efforts of Christian men ; but, 
sad to say, the means are at present lamentably insufficient. 
East of the R.ocky Mountains there are six clergymen of the 
Church of England ; west, not one. The Red River Settlement 
is a happy example of the invaluable advantage, temporal and 
spiritual, which even this very limited ministry has afforded to 
the people. 

Mr. Leith, a resident factor of the Company, left a sum often 
thousand pounds some time ago, for the Propagation of the Gospel 



156 HOCiiELAGA; OR, 



in this district, but it has, unfortunately, remained in litigation 
ever since. The Roman Catholic Church has two bishops and a 
very extensive mission in this western country, but the Church 
of the empire is humble and poor. In the year 1820, Mr. West, 
a missionary, first preached the pure gospel on the banks of the 
Red River. 

At the time of the English conquest, there were in Canada 
several richly-endowed establishments for the purposes of educa- 
tion. The seminaries of Quebec and Montreal were appro- 
priated more particularly to the instruction of ecclesiastics, and 
the order of the Jesuits was entrusted with the general teaching 
of the people. These rich endowments are since continued to the 
same objects, with the exception of the estates of the Jesuits, 
which have been assumed by the crown. The grants to the 
seminary of Quebec are of great value, consisting of more than a 
thousand square miles of land, and some choice property in the 
city ; those of Montreal are worth ten thousand pounds a year, 
at a low estimate. The estates of the order of the Jesuits were 
also great ; a part of them have been disposed of by the crown, 
but the more valuable portion still remains, and produces a hand- 
some income. 

Several amply-endowed nunneries afford instruction to the 
female children in the towns and villages of this province. 

After the confiscation of the estates of the Jesuits, up to the 
end of the last century, the means of education appear to have 
been very limited, insomuch that only a dozen or twenty people 
in a whole parish knew how to read : classics and the sciences 
were indeed taught at Montreal and Quebec, either quarterly or 
for a nominal charge, but these benefits reached to very few. 
The English were allowed to avail themselves of this instruction; 
they were received without any distinction or partiality, and ex- 
empted from attending the religious duties. 

In 1818, schools were generally established in Lower Canada 
under a settled system, supported by a grant from the Provincia 
Legislature ; but in 1832 this grant was reduced, and the yeai 
after discontinued altogether. A separate plan had been commenced 
in 1829, giving a school to every parish, under the care of trus- 
tees elected by the landholders, who were allowed to hold and 



ENGLAiND IN THE NEW WORLD. 157 

manage the school property, and receive benefactions. Half the 
expense of building the house for instruction was borne by the 
province, and a yearly sum of twenty pounds during three years, 
to the school-master, was also given, with some further allowance 
for the children of the poor, in proportion to their number ; those 
who were able paid two shillings a month for their education. At 
this time there were thirteen hundred and forty-four elementary 
schools in Lower Canada, besides a certain number of girl schools, 
each attached to a Roman Catholic Church. 

In 1836, two normal schools were established by the Legisla- 
ture, and considerable grants of money were made, for the pur- 
pose of training teachers for the country districts. Altogether, 
the appropriations at that period for the general purposes of edu- 
cation, averaged above twenty-four thousand pounds a year. At 
the present time, there are twenty seminaries or colleges in Lower 
Canada, under the management of the Roman Catholic church 
exclusively, but there are only two Protestant colleges. One is 
the M'Gill College, at Montreal, whose founder devised, in 1811, 
a valuable property in lands and buildings, and ten thousand 
pounds in money, for the object. This institution has the power 
of conferring degrees, and is in a flourishing condition. The 
other, the Lennoxville College, promises well, but is merely in its 
infancy. In Upper Canada, two hundred and twenty-six thousand 
acres of land are appropriated to King's College at Toronto, and 
sixty-six thousand to Upper Canada College. The Legislature 
also grants two thousand four hundred pounds annually for district 
and common schools, and about two hundred and thirty thousand 
acres of land are held for the purposes of general education. 
These colleges in Upper Canada have also the power of confer- 
ring degrees. The expense of a boarder in the proprietary school 
at Toronto is thirty pounds a year — in the college thirty-three. 
From the Roman Catholic seminary colleges in the Lower Pro- 
vince, a student who has passed through certain classes has a 
right to be admitted to the Bar after four instead of five years' 
study. 

A few years ago, the abuses and mismanagement of the public 
schools were very great, but at present they are working under a 
much improved system. It may be said that throughout the whole 



158 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



of Canada there are fair opportunities of elementary education 
for every one, except in the very remote and thinly settled dis- 
tricts. In the Upper Province these privileges are appreciated to 
a greater extent than in the Lower ; the hdbitans are scarcely 
persuaded of the necessity of being instructed ; their better classes 
are rather indifferent on the subject ; and some people go so far 
as to assert that the Roman Catholic priesthood in the rural dis- 
tricts are averse to the spread of enlightenment : they certainly 
need not feel alarm at the rapidity of its progress. 

As mentioned in the portion of Lord Durham's report to which 
I referred in another part of this volume, the possession of rather 
a superior education by a certain number of young men perhaps 
very humbly born, is not attended with happy or useful results. 
We find these people too proud or too idle to follow the lowly and 
toilsome occupations of their fathers ; they are not sufficiently 
gifted to attain success in their ill-chosen professions, and, driven 
by want, disappointment, and discontent, into the ranks of sedition, 
they are willing to persuade themselves and others that they are 
debarred from getting on by political causes, or indeed by any 
cause, except that of their own incapacity ; they dream of inde- 
pendence, la nation Canadienne, freedom from foreign rule, and 
all sorts of absurdities. In this bright and imaginative future, 
each young village surgeon or attorney fancies he is to play a 
conspicuous part, and by such like inflated ideas he tries to move 
the sluggish minds and sympathies of his ignorant relations. The 
most successful of these ambitious emjaryo Robespierres and Dan- 
tons rises perhaps to be the editor of some obscure newspaper, the 
organ of their innocuous and contemptible sedition ; or the repre- 
sentative of some " habitans " district, when the stipend attached 
to his seat in the provincial parliament saves him from penury 
and want. 

But these seminaries of education in Lower Canada produce 
also some very worthy exceptions to the class of which I have 
just now spoken ; and there is a considerable proportion of French 
Canadian gentlemen, whose character and acquirements entitle 
them to all respect and consideration. 

The merchants of British birth or descent are naturally edu- 
cated in very much the same way as their brethren at home, in a 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 169 

sound, practical, useful manner ; any degree of classical profi- 
ciency is of course rare, but not altogether without instances ; 
some are good linguists, all are generally well informed. They 
acquire at an early age the manners of men of the world, as their 
business brings them in contact with a number of people of various 
countries and of all classes. During the long winters, when all 
are bent solely upon amusement, they have also an opportunity 
of cultivating the habits and tastes of good society. Both the la- 
dies and gentlemen in the large towns of Canada excel in man- 
ner; from their earliest youth they mix in the gaieties and 
amusements of their native place, and this acquirement is attained 
perhaps rather at a sacrifice of others, more solid but less grace- 
ful and attractive. • 

The young lady who might be sadly puzzled over a passage of 
Dante or Ariosto, and not very clear as to whether Schiller was 
a poet or a fiddler, would most probably do the honors of a house 
with all the perfection and self-possession of a finished matron. 
But let it not be supposed for a moment that I make anything like 
a charge of ignorance against these fair Canadians, who are 
really among the most attractive of God's daughters — quite the 
contrary, they are all well educated to the extent which general 
society requires of them ; beyond that, they have no object to 
gain, and any one of them who aspired, would be placed in an 
almost unenviable isolation. Great numbers of the young ladies, 
Protestant as well as Roman Catholic, are educated at the con- 
vents, the remainder generally at day-schools in the principal 
towns. Home education is very rare, from the difficulty and ex- 
pense of finding suitable governesses. Their time of tuition 
usually ends at sixteen years of age, ^oon after which time they 
enter the world, and their career of conquest commences. 

At Quebec, Montreal, Toronto, and elsewhere, there are good 
private classical and high schools, which aflbrd fair opportunities 
of education for young gentlemen at a very moderate expense ; 
happily, therefore, it is less the custom now than it was formerly 
to send them for instruction to the United States, where they were 
not likely to imbibe a strong feeling of affection and respect for 
the mother country and the British crown. 

The lower classes of British birth and descent are, as a body, 



150 HOCHELAGA; OR, 



inferior in education to their neighbors in New England, but su- 
perior to the people of the southern and western States. One- 
fourth of their present number emigrated from the United King- 
dom as adults, and were of a class which the spread of intelli- 
gence, now I trust rapidly progressing at home, had not at that 
time reached. Many of the British Canadians, too, were born in 
settlements then remote and thinly populated, though now perhaps 
thriving and crowded ; and their early life was a constant toil 
and struggle for subsistence, leaving little leisure for education. 
The rising generation starts under brighter auspices. 

The press in Canada is generally superior in respectability, if 
not in talent, to that of the United States. It cannot indeed be 
pronounced free from personalities, or from the wide license of 
party warfare, for I regret to say that of these some very discre- 
ditable instances have occurred, but they are exceptions ; and 
the general rule is honesty and propriety. Quebec and Montreal 
have each eight or ten newspapers ; about half of them, and not 
the better half, are in the French language ; Kingston has five, 
and Toronto seven ; and all the towns of any importance in 
Upper Canada have at least one each. Nearly every shade of 
political opinion is advocated in these publications, but since the 
rebellion none of them openly profess republican views, or encou- 
rage a more intimate union with the United States ; during the 
present difficulties with that people, even the extreme radical 
prints have put forward many articles, warning the Americans 
that they are not to expect sympathy or co-operation from any 
party in Canada — that whatever disputes may be carried on about 
provincial affairs among themselves, they do not desire any 
foreign interference. William Lyon Mackenzie, the former 
leader of the Toronto sedition, has since published a book on the 
subject of that and subsequent events, from which it appears 
that his American sympathies have undergone wonderful diminu- 
tion. 

Canada has as yet contributed very little or nothing to general 
literature, but the youth of the country and the abundant neces- 
sary occupations of the people, readily account for this deficiency. 
Montreal, Quebec, and Toronto, can boast of very respectable 
libraries, scientific and literary institutions, and debating socie- 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 161 

ties ; the latter perhaps more important as an innocent and amus- 
ing pursuit, than from any great present or practical utility. 
There is also a French Canadian Scientific and Literary In- 
stitution at Quebec, lately founded, and promising well for the 
future. 

I say it with pleasure, that, within the last few years, the tone 
of the press, the prospects of literature, the means of instruction, 
and the desire of applying them, have received a great and 
salutary impulse of improvement throughout this magnificent 
province. 



162 ■ HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



CHAPTER XIV. 

Manners — Politics — Defence. 

In Upper Canada the better class of people have generally the 
same manners and customs as those who are engaged in similar 
pursuits and occupations in England. So large a proportion are 
retired officers of the army and navy, government officials, and 
men brought up in the old country, who have settled and become 
landholders, that they give the tone to the remainder, and between 
them and their republican neighbors there is generally a marked 
difference in dress and manner. Among the lower classes, this 
distinction is by no means so evident ; unfortunately, no small 
number of those dwelling on the borders readily adopt the ideas 
and manners of the Americans ; indeed, many of them are refu- 
gees from the States. Those in the interior, however, retain in a 
great degree the characteristics of the country, whence they or 
their fathers have emigrated. 

With the exception of the Richelieu district, the peasantry of 
Lower Canada, both of English and French origin, are more 
pleasing, civil, and attractive in their demeanor, than those of 
the Upper Province, The people of St. John's, and other places 
from the Richelieu River west to the St. Lawrence, are singu- 
larly unprepossessing ; they have all the grossness and insolence 
of the worst class of the Americans, without their energy and 
spirit ; besides, they are generally very much disaffected to the 
British Crown. They ai'e a mixed race of British, French, and 
Americans, and this union is by no means happy in its results. 
To the traveller coming into Canada from the United States by 
that route, these people appear in the most unfavorable contrast 
with their neighbors ; their farms badly cultivated, their houses 
poor and dirty, and the race of men mean-looking and discon- 
tented. 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 163 

While at St. John's, I made many efforts to find out the causes 
of their stagnation and ill feeling, but it was vain. They ac- 
knowledged that they had no taxes, that land was cheap, that 
Montreal was an excellent market for their produce, that no laws 
pressed upon them peculiarly or vexatiously. One man, indeed, 
said that, not being able to elect their Governor was a very great 
grievance, and on that account they could not consider themselves 
a free people. I suggested to him that this grievance, great as it 
was, need not have prevented him from mending his fence, 
through which, while we were speaking, half a dozen cattle had 
entered his field, and were performing Polkas on his young 
wheat. The fact is, that these turbulent mixed breeds are an 
indolent and worthless set of people, willing to attribute their 
unprosperous condition to English laws, rather than to their own 
demerits. 

At one time the misuse of ardent spirits was very general in 
Upper Canada, with all its melancholy and disastrous conse- 
quences ; it cannot be said that the evil is cured, but it is, cer- 
tainly, much mitigated, and the consumption, proportionately to 
the population, has been diminishing for some years past. At 
one time, settlements were given to a number of disbanded sol- 
diers, with a small commuted allowance for their pensions ; this 
scheme proved eminently unsuccessful : when so many of these 
veterans were in the same neighborhood, their old idle, and, in 
some cases, dissipated habits, were not likely to be at once aban- 
doned, and the dram-shop became the only prosperous place ; 
their farms were carelessly and unskilfully cleared and tilled, 
their little capital soon wasted ; and, in a very short time, the 
great majority of them had sold out their land for next to nothing, 
and were wandering about as beggars, thoroughly demoralized 
and discontented. 

Old soldiers have generally been found to make very indiffer- 
ent settlers, particularly when congregated ; but there are many 
pleasing exceptions of worthy, loyal, and prosperous men. 

The manner of servants to their masters, and of the lower 
classes generally to their superiors, is much the same as in Eng- 
land ; tradespeople, too, hold a like relative position. Your boot- 
maker does not consider that it adds to his importance or real in- 



164 HOCHELAGA ; OK, 



dependence to sit down in your room with his hat on, and whistle 
and spit while he takes your measure, as his republican brethren in 
the United States would probably do. I made a small purchase 
from a man in a shop at Baltimore, who was smoking a cigar, 
chewing tobacco, and eating a peach at the same time ; with so 
many pleasing and interesting occupations, he, of course, had not 
much leisure to spare for civilities to his customer. 

With the exception of a few of the lowest class, the Canadians 
are quite free from those very disagreeable habits which are so 
unpleasantly general among the Americans. Chewing tobacco 
is not the fashion, and they reserve their saliva for other purposes 
than those of a projectile nature. Their manners, customs, and 
dress, are those of England, not of America ; and in this there 
is a bond of union and sympathy, of which all astute politicians 
acknowledge the strength and value. 

We may divide the political opinions of the people of Canada, 
as now represented in their Provincial Parliament, into four prin- 
cipal sections ; first the Upper Canada Conservatives, who had been 
formerly altogether dominant in their own province, and went by 
the name of the Family Compact. Secondly, the Upper Canada 
Reformers, under the old system virtually excluded from office. 
Thirdly, the French Canadians, the principals in the late troubles, 
strongly opposed to the union, which has weakened their power. 
Fourthly, the Lower Canadian English, now become more influ- 
ential in the United Parliament. It would be difficult to point 
out any one of these parties free from the love of place and 
patronage, or from a factious spirit ; the anxiety for government 
employments is very great, and considerable sacrifices of preju- 
dices are sometimes made to obtain or keep them. The struggle 
for place is even keener than at home, and, in proportion to the 
smallness of the object, and of the field in which it is to be won, 
there is less of dignity in the pursuit. 

The Legislature consists of two houses, the Legislative Coun- 
cil, and the Legislative Assembly. The members of the first are 
appointed for life by the Crown, but have themselves the power 
of resigning ; they are chosen from among those of the inhabit- 
ants of the county the most conspicuous for character, intelli- 
gence, and wealth, and are now by no means limited to any par- 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 165 



ticular party. They are thirty-four in number at present, 
eighteen being resident in Upper, and fourteen in Lower Canada; 
ten members constitute a house for the despatch of business ; their 
functions in the state correspond very nearly with those of the 
House of Lords in England, but the Bishops are not included 
among its members. 

The Legislative Assembly consists of eighty-four members, 
half from each province ; they are elected by the people. A 
freehold of forty shillings yearly value, or the payment of ten 
pounds rent annually, is the qualification for voters, which, in point 
of fact, amounts to almost universal suffrage, one out of six in the 
whole population having the power of voting : generally, however, 
but a small portion exercise this privilege ; the registration is 
said to be very loose and imperfect. The Legislative Assembly 
is chosen for four years, but is at any time liable to be dissolved 
by the Governor's authority. The members receive fifteen shil- 
lings a day indemnity for their time devoted to the public service, 
and a shilling a mile travelling expenses ; a qualification of 
landed property to the value of five hundred pounds is necessary 
to retain a seat in the House. 

The Executive Council, or ministry, consists of seven officials, 
who perform all the duties of administration, under the Governor. 
It is the aim of a powerful party in the province to make this 
body practically responsible to the House of Assembly, as the 
ministry in England is to the House of Commons, and that they 
should possess the whole patronage and control of their sepa- 
rate departments. In the present House of Assembly, the 
governm.ent or conservative party numbers about ibrty mem- 
bers; the French Canadian twenty-seven, the Upper Canada 
Reformers eight ; the rest are doubtful. The opposition is 
composed of the second and third of these sections, with occa- 
sionally some of the doubtful ; but, to say truth, there is now 
but little ground for division, except whether this or that party 
shall receive the emoluments of office : there is no great question 
on which they come in collision ; that of Responsible Govern- 
ment is at rest as long as the ministers disapproving of it, have, 
as at present, an efficient majority in the House of Assembly. 

In the debates which have taken place during this present Ses- 



166 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



sion, a high loyal and satisfactory spirit has appeared among all 
parties in reference to our difficult relations with the United 
States. The leader of the Upper Canada Reformers expressed 
himself to the eifect that, " The Americans will be altogether 
mistaken if they suppose that political differences in Canada arise 
from any sympathy with them or their institutions ; we have our 
quarrels, but we are perfectly well able to settle them among 
ourselves, and will not suffer their interference." One of the 
most influential French Canadians, in speaking of a bill intro- 
duced for reorganizing the militia, said, " My countrymen would 
be the first to rush to the frontier, and joyfully oppose their 
breasts to the foe ; and the last shot fired on this continent in the 
defence of the British Crown, will be by the hand of a French 
Canadian : we are by habit, feeling, and religion, monarchists 
and conservatives." This militia bill has been judiciously refer- 
red to a committee composed of men of various races and opinions, 
who will popularize its provisions without impairing its efficiency. 
All parties appear sincerely anxious to make this important force 
as effective as possible, and at the same time naturally desire a 
fair share of its patronage. 

Perhaps the political state of Canada was never so satisfactory 
as at present : the opposition is utterly at a loss for any monster 
grievance to stir men's minds ; the masses are contented, and 
now wise enough to know how injurious their former dissensions 
were. In the Parliament, elected by nearly universal suffrage, 
the tone is decidedly conservative, and it is almost unanimous in 
expressions of loyalty to the Crown, and regard for British con- 
nection. The debates are generally carried on with great pro- 
priety, and there are several very good speakers, and valuable 
men of business. 

There is no doubt that great good to Canada has been the ulti- 
mate effect of the rebellion, though productive at the time of so 
much suffering and loss of life ; the discontented and turbulent 
found out their weakness, the well disposed their strength. Sir 
Francis Head's daring policy of trusting altogether to the loyalty 
of the people, and sending away the soldiery, was most happy in 
its consequences. It is evident to all that since then a better and 
more confident spirit animates the men of Upper Canada ; indeed, 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 167 

subsequently to Mackenzie's discomfiture at Toronto, very few- 
British subjects joined the invading sympathizers. 

In Lower Canada the numbers implicated in the troubles 
proved to be very small, compared to the masses of the popula- 
tion. The attention of the Home Government has been, since 
these events, much more actively engaged with this country ; 
many real grievances have been removed ; great sums advanced 
for public works, the union effected, and, though some still com- 
plain, it is acknowledged by all parties that there is a great im- 
provement in the mode of distributing the provincial patronage. 
This last always has been, and always will be, a very tender 
point in Canada ; and it is, certainly, but right that all offices in 
the colony, that of the Governor and his personal staff, of course, 
excepted, should be exclusively filled by the inhabitants of the 
province, and with as fair a proportion with regard to race as 
circumstances may admit of. 

It would also be highly politic to strengthen the tie of affection 
between the mother country and the colony by more frequently 
bestowing naval and military appointments among the people of 
the latter who may be properly qualified for them, as also the 
titles and honorary marks of royal favor, suitable to the merits and 
services which might be brought under notice. The gallant De 
Salaberry was surely worthy of such reward, and he by no 
means stood alone. There could also be found men, who from 
their civil services, fortunes, and social position, have claim 
amply sufficient to justify the bestowal of the junior grades of 
hereditary rank. At this present time there is not a Peer resi- 
dent in this country, and but two Baronets. 

With regard to the people, I believe there is none in the world 
so lightly taxed, or more free, to the fullest extent of rational 
liberty ; the legislation, with regard to the titles of land, is pecu- 
liarly favorable to them; when they settle as tenants on any 
estate, they can at any time oblige the landlord to sell them their 
holding, if they can produce the purchase-money, and this, with 
common industry and prudence, they may very soon accumulate 
from the produce of their farms. 

Among the Americans, in discussing the subject of a war with 
England, it is very usual to hear it asserted that, with twenty or 



168 HOCHELAGA; OR, 



thirty thousand militia, Canada could be overrun in a few weeks ; 
and this ignorant belief causes many to long for the opportunity 
of this easy but glorious conquest. They should be informed that 
any hopes founded on the state of things in the last war will prove 
fallacious. In 1812, Upper Canada was a thinly peopled coun- 
try and a wilderness, occupied by a rude race of poor and igno- 
rant laborers, who furnished but indifferent materiel for soldiers, 
and were without a class qualified to act as officers. Since then, 
numerous immigrants of a far better class joined the original in- 
habitants, including a very large proportion of retired officers of 
the army and navy, who have received grants of land from the 
government. Within the last twenty years, several entire Scot- 
tish clans, under their chiefs — McNabs, Glengaries, and others, 
worthy of their warlike ancestors, have migrated hither. Hardy 
and faithful men from the stern hills of Ulster, and fiery but kind- 
hearted peasants from the South of Ireland, with sturdy, honest 
yeomen from Yorkshire and Cumberland, have fixed their homes 
in the Canadian forests : these immigrants, without losing their 
love and reverence for the crown and laws of their native coun- 
try, have become attached to their adopted land, where their 
stake is now fixed, and are ready to defend their properties and 
their government against any foreign invasion or domestic trea- 
son. 

When the war of 1812 commenced, there were in the whole 
of Canada only four regiments of regular infantry, and four com- 
panies of artillery, numbering altogether less than two thousand 
four hundred men. But history tells us how disastrous were 
the results to the invaders even when opposed to so feeble a 
force ; the surrender of General Hull with his whole army and 
the territory of Michigan — the defeat at Chrystler's farm — the 
rout and slaughter at Queenston, with the capture of half the 
assailants. But, in those days, the same false ideas of the facility 
of the conquest of Canada were held by the great mass of the 
Americans, as those which delude them at the present day. 
However, the necessity of great sacrifices and severe suffering 
soon brought on a more just and sober view of the question, as no 
doubt would be the case again. 

The British government, determined to preserve this colony in 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 169 

the event of a war, has been at a great expense for the last quar- 
ter of a century in improving its defences and military commu- 
nications. Quebec has been placed, as far as human skill is 
capable, beyond the chances of American war. Works of 
strength and importance have been erected on the island near Mon- 
treal, and others are now in preparation ; from the improvement 
of roads, and steam-boats, a large force could be collected to de- 
fend them at a very short notice. Kingston is secure in its mar- 
lello towers, and presents fortifications against anything but the 
systematic attack of a large regular army, supported by an over- 
powering naval f^rce. Toronto would prove defensible against 
militia, and a serious obstacle even to trained troops. Along the 
frontier of Lower Canada are several v/orks which would also 
embarrass the advance of an invading army. 

There are at present in Canada seven companies of artillery, 
eleven regiments of infantry, three troops of excellent provincial 
cavalry, and a negro company of a hundred men on the frontier; 
between seven and eight thousand elTective men in all, nearly as 
large a force in regular troops as the whole army of the United 
States. The nominal strength of the Canadian militia is about 
one hundred and forty thousand men, being the whole of the 
population capable of bearing arms ; one-fourth of these might be 
made active and effectual, without putting a stop to the various 
industrial pursuits of the country ; numbers of the retired offi- 
cers would be able and willing to command these ; several thou- 
sand non-commissioned officers — arms, ammunition, clothing and 
pay, can be readily supplied from England ; and the arsenals of 
Canada are already sufficiently supplied with artillery of all kinds, 
carriages, and equipment, for the commencement of a war. 
From these few statements as to the position of the country, even 
unaided by troops from England, it may be seen that the present 
popular notion prevailing in the United States of an easy Cana- 
dian conquest is undoubtedly a blind and fallacious one. 

In the late war, the strength of the British power was employed 
in the Peninsula, the East and West Indies, Africa, and Sardinia. 
Her navy had to blockade nearly all the principal ports and rivers 
of Europe, she was compelled to keep fleets in the Mediterranean 
and Baltic seas, in the Pacific Ocean and ofi' the coast of India : 

PART I. 9 



170 HOCHELAGA; OR, 



at no period of her history had she such limited means to spare 
for a struggle on' the American Continent. 

At this present moment, her position is exactly the reverse of 
what it then was : she is in close and intimate relations of friend- 
ship with the European powers, and sympathized with by all in 
her stand against the grasping policy of her republican ofispring. 
The almost miraculous victories of Ferozeshah and Sobraon have 
rivalled the glories of Macedon, and given peace to her Indian 
empire, with an incalculable increase of moral power over the 
hundred millions of its inhabitants. Forty thousand splendid 
troops and a magnificent artillery are ready at a day's notice in 
the British islands, burning with military ardor, and flushed with 
the triumphs of their brethren in the East ; while an organized 
militia and ten thousand effective pensioners, are prepared to take 
their place in the towns and garrisons at home. 

A dozen line of battle ships can leave her ports in a few hours, 
and more than one hundred armed steamers bear her flag ; the 
greater number of these could reach the Western Lakes, and 
at once establish her superiority there. The excitement of war, 
and the splendid prospects of prize money, would speedily attract 
into the naval service as many as could be required, of the two 
hundred thousand merchant seamen registered as belonging to 
her marine. 

A distinguished American general officer, of great experience 
in the wars of this continent, lately stated it as his opinion, that 
any attempt to invade Canada with less than a hundred thousand 
men would prove a failure ; one half of these, at least, to be regu- 
lar troops, accompanied by a large park of artillery and backed 
by the command of the Lakes. This estimate may appear large 
to his countrymen, but I am convinced it is even insufficient. If 
a war be once fairly commenced, the Americans will be under 
the necessity of employing an enormous military force ; the num- 
ber of men necessary for the defence of the whole Atlantic coast 
will far exceed that required for the invasion of Canada ; as New 
York, Boston, and the southern seaports would all be threatened 
by British fleets. 

In such case, no calculation could be founded on the number 
of men to be obtained from these maritime States, for all would 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 171 

be required at home ; therefore the force to cross the St. Law- 
rence must be raised exclusively from the Western Country, 
Vermont, and New Hampshire. Canada then, if invaded at all, 
will give abundant employment to these levies; the Atlantic 
States will be hard pressed to defend their coasts ; while the ter- 
rors of insurrection, and the invasion of black troops from the 
West Indies, will paralyse the south. This war with England, 
so ignorantly and flippantly talked of, will be no gentle tourney ; 
all other pursuits and occupations of the people must yield to it ; 
the conscription must allow no exception or relaxation ; commerce 
and their merchant navy must be sacrificed ; an enormous debt 
and weight of taxation incurred ; with the imminent risk of na- 
tional bankruptcy and the dissolution of the Union. 

Mexico burns for revenge ; at the first favorable moment, her 
wild and reckless population will swarm into the south-westcni 
States; backed by England, with British officers, ammunition, 
and money, the coast protected by her fleets, the council directed 
by her wisdom — even this lost and ruined republic would prove a 
dangerous foe. There is yet another race who hate these grasp- 
ing citizens of the United States with an undying hatred ; feeble 
and unmanageable in any combhied action as they are, and in- 
capable of making permanent impression — nevertheless those who 
have intruded on the territory of those wild men, who are thinly 
scattered along a frontier of civilisation of thousands of miles, 
know how to dread the horrors of an Indian war. 

I have attempted to show that England's means of defending 
Canada are amply sufficient for any emergency ; but the desire 
to exercise these means would probably only last so long as her 
protection was sought for by the people of the country, and as 
the connecting tie was mutually advantageous. It would be nei- 
ther policy nor interest to retain forcible possession of a discon- 
tented, mutinous, and unprofitable province. But a wise and 
generous government will prevent the possible occurrence of such 
a state of things ; judicious arrangements of commercial inter- 
course will secure some of the strongest feelings of the human 
mind in favor of the connection, and a liberal and enlightened 
policy, creating a spirit of attachment to, and confidence in British 
rule, will enlist the noblest and warmest sympathies also in the 
eause. 



172 HOCHELAGA; OR, 



I shall speak more fully in another place of the proposed rail- 
road from Halifax to Quebec, and its surely beneficial effects to 
these provinces. When it is accomplished, with its extension to 
Toronto, and even Sandwich, on one side, and the extremity of 
the Golden Horn of Cape Breton on the other, grand and giganlia 
as the scheme may appear, it is one by no means improbable or 
even remote ; I should rejoice to see all the British North Ameri- 
can possessions, Newfoundland included, united under a central 
colonial government, and represented in a common legislature ; 
each, however, still retaining its own assemblies for local and 
particular purposes. 

It would have the effect of nationalizing " England in the New 
World," as distinct from America. Plans for mutual advantage 
and assistance between the provinces could be more readily and 
efficiently carried out ; the separate and French feeling of a con- 
siderable portion of the people would be weakened, if not in their 
own hearts, at least in its evil influences on the country ; the 
loyalty of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, the energy and ac- 
tivity of Upper Canada, would act on each other with reciprocal 
improvement ; then additional confidence and self-respect would 
be felt by the inhabitants of what would have become a powerful 
and important State ; and the secondary condition of scattered 
colonies merge into the dignity of a united nation. 

With more than two millions of people, a vast territory, admi- 
rable intercommunication, varied and inexhaustible resources, and 
the military support and protection of the mother country, this 
British America would not yield in importance to the gigantic but 
unwieldy and disjointed Pi-epublic itself. The principle of go- 
vernment in these united provinces should be, as much as possi- 
ble, centralization, in order to break or smootlie down the differ- 
ences of origin and local feeling ; a perfectly free Legislative 
Assembly, with a vigorous and judicious executive, patronage 
fairly distributed and scrupulously confined to the people of the 
country, a liberal but not extravagant distribution of honors for 
civil and other services and merits, the perfect independence of 
the judicial bench, and the Legislative Council beyond the popu- 
lar control, but at the same time as little as possible under the 
influence of the prerogative. 

It would be ditiicult to decide whether Montreal or Quebec is 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 173 

better fitted for the future metropolis of such a country. Mon- 
treal stands in a richer district, has better and more general 
communications, a much more convenient river frontage, and, 
from the level nature of its site, allows of greater regularity in 
building and an unlimited extension ; it is also one-fifth more 
populous, and undeniably the handsomer and more thriving city 
of the two. The objections are that it is not central, and what 
is much more important — that it is unpleasantly near the frontier 
of the United -States, and from the constant and easy communi- 
cation with them, more liable to the influences of their ideas and 
example ; besides, in case of collision between the two countries, 
it is the first point of attack that presents itself, and, as a military 
position, is difficult of defence. The occupation of the capital by 
a hostile force is at all times a " heavy blow and great discou- 
ragement " to a people, 

Quebec would be nearer the centre of the great line of rail- 
road and water communication ; its intercourse is much more 
intimate with England than with the United States ; and it is 
safe from even the apprehension of being overrun by an enemy's 
army : on the plains of Abraham, beyond the suburbs of St. 
Roch, and on the northern bank of the river St. Charles, is ample 
space for any requisite extension : a tract of sand, dry at low 
water, stretching into the basin of the river St. Lawrence, might 
very easily be reclaimed to continue the Lower Town for a con- 
siderable extent as a river frontage, which would at the same 
time improve and deepen the channel of St. Charles. Altogether, 
from the political and military advantages of the position, Quebec 
appears preferable. 

Many wise and worthy people may suspect a danger in thus 
strengthening into a nation these detached colonies, and quote with 
uneasiness the case of the States of America when they met in 
Congress at Philadelphia. But their case was, in reality, widely 
different ; they had been suffering for years under certain wrongs 
and injuries inflicted by a despotic and feeble government ; 
the rare and difficult communication between them and England 
weakened the ties of interest and identity, and increased their 
chances of success in opposition ; the profligate administration of 
patronage, the careless and contemptuous system of colonial ma- 



174 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



nao-ementj stirred up a resistance among them which there were 
neither energy nor resources to overcome. But now each day 
brings England and her American children into closer and more 
familiar relation. English prices raise or depress their markets ; 
her population supplies vigorous reinforcements to that of these 
provinces ; her victories spread rejoicing and honest pride among 
her western people ; — her difficulties fling their shadows even 
over the sunny banks of the St. Lawrence. 

There are two great tendencies constantly at work in these 
colonies — one to make them British, the other American. Ten 
years ago the current favored the latter, now, it runs strongly for 
the former ; we should foster it, train it, honor it ; not by unna- 
tural and unhealthy enactments in favor of some pet portion of 
their commerce, not by lavish expenditure on works of little im- 
portance and enormous difficulty — but we should foster it in 
justice — train it in justice — honor it in justice — " do to them as 
we would be done by." 

The tendency towards America is a rank and noisome weed ; 
it grows up in coarse luxuriance among the profligate and discon- 
tented, through the mongrel population of the Richelieu and the 
borders of the eastern townships. In the villages of the Niagara 
district, where neglected advantages and dissolute morals have 
brought on premature decay — there it flourishes, there is its 
strength ; among such will it find sympathy. 

But among the worthy, the educated, and the prosperous, lies 
the strength of the tendency to England. The more respectable 
of the ministers of religion, whatever its form or creed ; the 
wealthy and intelligent merchants, the influential country gentle- 
men ; these form a strong connecting link. But, most of ^ all, the 
honest emigrant draws close the bond between the fatherland and 
his adopted soil ; he perhaps has already half won the prize of 
competence in this new country, but still keeps treasured in the 
warmest place in his heart, the memory of his early home — of 
the blessed village church hallowed for centuries by the prayers 
of the good and faithful of his people, and of that holy spot 
beside its walls where the grass grows green over his father's 
grave. 

END OF PART I. 



WILEY & PUTNAM'S 

LIBRARY OF 

CHOICE READING. 



HOCHELAGA; 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD 



PART II. 



HOCHELA&A; 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD 



KDITBD B1^ 



ow 



ELIOT WARBURTON, E SQ,\.e,,3ar^Vtolo>HM 



'THE CRESCENT AND THE CROSS." 



IN TWO PARTS. 



PART II. 



NEW YORK: 
WILEY & PUTNAM, 161 BROADWAY 

1846. 



R. CBAiaHEAD's Power Press, 
US Fulton Street. 



CONTENTS OF PART II 



:^^ 



FAOI 

CHAPTER I. 

BUFFAJjO — SARATOGA 1 

CHAPTER 

ALBANY WEST POINT — NEW YORK ^^B .... ^8 

CHAPTER HI. 

PHILADELPHIA — BALTIMORE 34 

CHAPTER IV. 

BALTIMORE— WASHINGTON 45 

CHAPTER V. 

BOSTON 58 

CHAPTER VI. 

BOSTON — LOWELL — PLYMOUTH FESTIVAL — WINTER TOUR TO 

CANADA ... 72 

CHAPTER VII. 

THE FAR WEST OREGON 88 

CHAPTER VIII. 

RELIGION— EDUCATION — MANNERS . , 109 

CHAPTER IX. 

DEMOCRACY 123 

CHAPTER X. 

PROSPECTS OF AMERICA ... 135 

CHAPTER XI. 

GENERAL REMARKS ......... 146 

CHAPTER XII. 

TERRITORY OF THE UNITED STATES — MEXICO THE INDIANS , 157 

CHAPTER XIII. 

NOVA SCOTIA — NEW BRUNSWICK — THE ISLANDS — HUDSON'S BAY 170 

CHAPTER XIV. 

5JONCLUSION . ... 186 



HOCHELAGAj 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD 



^: 



, CHAPTER I. 

* Buffalo — Saratoga, 

Buffalo causes a total reaction in the mind after Niagara : brave 
men busily changing every day — going ahead with high pressure 
force. It is one of the very best samples of Young Western 
America : full of foreigners — Irish, French, Germans ; principal- 
ly the latter, but all Americanized, all galvanized with the same 
frantic energy. The population rush about on their different 
occupations, railway engines scream, and steam-boats puff on 
every side ; wagons rattle about in all directions, men swear, 
bargain, or invite you to their hotel, in the accents of half-a- 
dozen countries. 

The situation of the town is very good : at the head of the 
Niagara River is the outlet of Lake Erie ; at the end of the 
great chain of the Western Lakes — the commerce of twelve 
hundred miles of these broad waters is centred in this point, and 
condensed in the narrow passage of the Erie canal and Hudson 
River, till, at New York, it pours out its wealth into the Atlantic. 

The site has a gentle dip to the south, towards the lake ; across 

PABT II, 2 



HOCHELAGA : OR, 



it, lying nearly east and west, is the harbor, separated by a 
peninsula from the waters of the lake. This affords secure and 
ample shelter for the shipping, numerous though they be, which 
crowd in day and night. The town was born in the first year of 
the nineteenth century. The English totally destroyed it in 
1814, in retaliation for the burning of Little York, or Toronto, by 
the Americans. I'he motley population numbers now twenty- 
five thousand souls ; they possess sixty steam-boats, and more 
than three hundred sailing vessels. 

There are many large j^flKlc buildings, erected by a very en- 
terprising man — among ^^^rest a jail, where he at present 
resides : he forged for large sums of money, bought land, ran up 
streets and market-places, indulged in various speculations, pros- 
pered for a long time, arrived at great respectability, till at length 
he committed the heinous, unpardonable crime of being found out, 
and was immediately east into prison by a virtuously indignant 
people. This speculative and unfortunate individual's name is 
Rathbun. 

Lake Erie is but shallow ; the length is two hundred and forty, 
the breadth varies from forty to sixty niiles ; there are many 
shoals and rocks, the causes of constant and dreadful losses. In 
stormy weather, the seas are short and dangerous. The harbors 
are few and distant, and the navigation is much impeded by ice 
during the winter. The level is three hundred and thirty-four 
feet above Lake Ontario : Lake Huron is larger and deeper, 
Michigan still larger and deeper, Superior largest and deepest of 
all. 

In these waters the Americans have a far greater quantity of 
shipping than the English. In the last war, on the 10th of Sep- 
tember, 1813, this lake was the scene of one of their greatest 
triumphs ; Commodore Perry destroyed or took the whole of the 
British squadron under Captain Barclay. After that engagement, 
the command of the navigation was retained by them. The gal- 
lant Barclay was frightfully wounded on this occasion, losing an 
arm and a leg. When he returned to England in this mutilated 
state he did not venture to meet a young lady to whom he was 
engaged and tenderly attached, and sent a friend to inform her 
that she was free from her engagement. " Tell him," said the 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 



English maiden, " that, had he only enough body left to hold his 
soul, I'll marry none but him.'' 

The first vessel that ever sailed on these Western seas was of 
sixty tons burthen, built in the Niagara River, January, 1579 ; 
she was dragged up into Lake Erie, and started on her bold ad- 
venture, under the guidance of La Salle. In August they 
entered Lake Huron through the St. Clair River, where a violent 
storm assailed them. There the stout hearts of La Salle and his 
sailors gave way to the terrors of these unknown waters : they 
knelt to pray, and prepared for de^ik except the pilot, who, as 
our old friend Father Hennepin says, "did nothing all that time 
but curse and swear against La Salle for having brought him 
thither to make him perish in a nasty lake, and lose the glory he 
had acquired by history and happy navigation of the ocean." 
They, however, escaped this danger, and passed into Lake Michi- 
gan, where, after sailing forty leagues, they landed on an island 
at the mouth of Green Bay, whence La Salle sent back the ship 
to Niagara, laden with rich and valuable furs, procured by trade 
with the Indians of the coasts where they had touched in the 
voyage. The pilot and five men embarked in her, but they 
never reached the shore ; it is supposed that she foundered in 
Lake Huron. Such was the first voyage of the first ship that 
ever ploughed the waters of the West. 

The Americans are building a strong fort to protect Buffalo, at 
Blackrock, on the shores of the lake, near the entrance to the 
Niagara River. On the Canada side is Fort Erie, now in ruins. 
It was taken from the English, held for some time, abandoned 
and destroyed in 1814 ; as it does not cover any points of essen- 
tial importance, it has never been restored. Near this place, on 
the river, is the village of Waterloo ; the name and situation are 
worthy of a more flourishing settlement. 

Returning, we travel by steam-boat to Chippewa, and, going 
down the Niagara River, pass Grand Island to the left, belonging 
to our Republican neighbors, a fine tract of land, bearing, in 
proof of its fertility, a splendid white oak : no timber on the 
whole continent is more valuable for the Atlantic dockyards. 
Next to this is Navy Island, in the English territory, of sympa- 
thizing infancy, far inferior in size and richness of soil to its 



HOCHELAGA : OR, 



American sister. A Canadian farmer was settled there, and 
lived for many years in happy prosperity ; he and his family had 
but little communication with the shore across the dangerous 
waters, except on one day in the week, when the sound of the 
distant bell warned them to loose their little canoe, and hasten to 
the house of prayer. It is not known what became of them since 
the blood-stained sympathizers swarmed into their quiet retreat, 
but the buildings are burnt down, and the improvement gone to 
waste. The poor farmer's crime was not to be forgiven by these 
blasphemers of the name o£j|liberty : in his youth he had been 
taught — and he strove to teach his children the same — " To fear 
God, and honor the King." 

Our primitive railway carried us again to Queenston : we pass 
over the ferry to Lewiston, and are soon on board an American 
steamer bound for Oswego, in the United States, on the south 
shore of Lake Ontario. There were a great number of people 
in the steamer, all Americans, travelling for health or amuse- 
ment. I talked to every one I could get to listen to me, and 
found them courteous, intelligent, and communicative, well read 
over a very broad surface, particularly of newspapers, but only 
a surface ; very favorably disposed to the English as individuals, 
but I fear not so as a nation, rather given to generalize on our 
affairs ; on the state of the poor, from the Andover workhouse ; 
on the nobility, from the late Lord Hertford ; on morality, from 
Doctor Lardner. These are the sort of data on such matters 
kept for ever before their eyes by their press, echoed and re- 
echoed through the remotest parts of the Union, till even the 
best informed and most liberal-minded among them are, more or 
less, acted upon by their influence. 

Towards night there was some wind and a heavy swell ; this 
put an end to my investigations in national character, for all my 
samples were soon too ill for further examination. Among the 
passengers were a lady and gentleman from Georgia, very pleas- 
ing people, whose acquaintance I had made at the Falls. I found 
that their route, as well as mine, lay to Saratoga. Knowing that 
I had never been in the United States before, they made me 
promise that I would faithfully and without reserve remark to 
them everything which appeared to me strange in language^ peo- 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 



pie, or customs, as we travelled, particularly with regard to them- 
selves. 1 gratified them as far as was in my power, and we 
found it a source of infinite amusement. 

Criticism was borne with perfect good humor : one only sub- 
ject I instantly found to be unsafe : its slightest mention made 
the fire kindle in the southern's dark eye. It is the black spot 
on the brightness of his country's future, to which foes point with 
hope, friends with despair ; the cancer eating into the giant 
frame, deforming its beauty, withering its strength — it is the 
awful curse of slavery, which they say they would give all but 
life to cut out and cast away. 

Between an Englishman and any American, or between Ame- 
rican citizens of Free and Slave States, the subject cannot be 
quietly argued or reasoned upon — the very word rouses the 
angry passions like an insult. In one, the generous blood flushes 
from cheek to brow as he denounces the unholy law — in the 
other, where many a high and noble feeling may also dwell, the 
heart is stung at the probing of the loathsome wound which his 
trite and flimsy sophistry strives in vain to hide. Nevertheless, 
I felt and I feel it to be a duty, as it is an impulse, to give to this 
great crime the voice of condemnation — utterly, unconditionally, 
be it in public or in private, among friends or foes ; if the subject 
be touched upon, an Englishman should not hold his peace. 

Luckily for me, while carrying out these principles, my Geor- 
gian friend became exceedingly sea-sick and seemed to find the 
remainder of my arguments quite unanswerable. Highly excited 
by success in silencing my opponent, I walked proudly on the 
deck for some time, but several long voyages having deprived me 
of all sympathy with the principal feeling of my fellow-passen- 
gers, I soon became tired of isolation, and went to sleep. 

Very early in the morning we landed at Oswego ; then, after a 
short stay, embarked in a canal-boat for Syracuse. The names 
in this country are very amusing. Mrs. Malaprop could not 
have furnished a funnier or more unconnected string than those 
of the towns east from Rochester, for instance — Pittsford, Ganan- 
dai^ufi, Shortsmills, Vienna, Palmyra, Clyde, Lyons, Geneva, 
Waterloo, Seneca, Elmira, Oswego, Ithaca. 

The town of Oswego is situated partly on each side of the 



HOCHELAGA; OR, 



river- from which it takes its name ; a large portion of it is built 
of wood, and it has that temporary look so general in American 
country towns ; it seems, however, to answer very well as shelter 
for five thousand active, industrious people. There are places 
of worship here for no fewer than six different persuasions. The 
Jnited States government have built two large stone piers and a 
lighthouse ; that the object of this liberality may be understood, 
it should be observed that Fort Ontario, protecting the entrance 
of the harbor on the eastern side, has been lately repaired and 
strengthened. They are quite right, for this is one of the most 
important naval and military points on their northern frontier. 

This being an American town, it is unnecessary to add that 
steamers, stage coaches, and canal boats, are perpetually issuing 
forth and entering in on all sides. 

Our route was south, the conveyance was much the same 
sort of thing as in Ireland, the country on the banks cleared, but 
raw.looking and poorly cultivated ; the houses and people had, 
however, the appearance of prosperity. I could not admire the 
scenery as much as my wish to please my Georgian friends 
rendered desirable ; for my unmanageable thoughts kept flying 
away to the canals which lie among the rich, verdant coombes 
of Somerset. 

In this free country, there are plank bridges across the water 
wherever any free citizen chooses to place them : to these small 
types of liberality the traveller must meekly bow his head, or in- 
deed his whole body, when he passes under them ; this gives rise 
to a curious series of gymnastics as you glide along ; particularly 
among the portly and not very active, but highly respectable 
class, of which I am a member. 

I met here and elsewhere in my travels with a great number 
of old acquaintances, at least people who were quite familiar to 
me from the description of their persons and habits given by dif- 
ferent writers. Probably they are government officers, paid by 
the State to live perpetually in public conveyances, for the pur- 
pose of blinding foreigners as to the real manners of the people, 
lest we Europeans, finding it too charming a country, should fiock 
over in inconvenient crowds. These officers, however, unlike 
all others, are evidently not removed with each new President, 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD 



and may therefore become dangerous in time, as forming the 
nucleus of a conservative body; but I do not think the increasing 
strength of democracy is likely to lessen their numbers. To say 
truth, they do blind and thoroughly deceive you, if they be taken 
as specimens of the manners of the people, at least those of the 
Northern States. There is no doubt there are a few habits ex- 
ceedingly disagi-eeabie to those who are unaccustomed to them : 
these are of unpleasantly general practice, and sometimes exhibit 
rather too strong a regard for their personal convenience and 
comfort : nevertheless kindness, readiness to assist, and a wish to 
give information are almost universal. 

I am convinced that a lady, no matter what her age and at- 
tractions might be, could journey through the whole extent of 
the Union, not only without experiencing a single annoyance, but 
aided in every possible way with unobtrusive civility. Indeed, 
great numbers of Sophonisbas and Almiras do travel about, pro- 
tected only by the chivalry of their countrymen and their own 
undoubted propriety. To them the best seats, the best of every- 
thing, are always allotted. A friend of mine told me of a little 
affair at a New York theatre, the other night, illustrative of my 
assertion. A stiff-necked Englishman had engaged a front place 
and of course the best corner ; when the curtain rose he was duly 
seated, opera-glass in hand, to enjoy the performance. A lady 
and gentleman came into the box shortly afterwards : the cava- 
lier in escort, seeing that the place where our friend sat was the 
best, called his attention saying " The lady. Sir," and motioned 
that the corner should be vacated. The possessor, partly because 
he disliked the imperative mood, and partly because it bored him 
to be disturbed, refused. Some words ensued, which attracted 
the attention of the sovereign people in the pit, who magisterially 
inquired what was the matter. The American came to the front 
of the box and said, " There is an Englishman here, who will 
not give up his place to a lady." Immediately their majesties 
swarmed up by dozens over the barriers, seized the offender, very 
gently though, and carried him to the entrance ; he kicked, 
cursed, and fought, all in vain ; he excited neither the pity nor 
the anger of his stern executioners ; they placed him carefully 
on his feet again at the steps, one man handing him his hat, 



HOCHELAGA ; OR 



another his opera-glass, and a third the price he had paid for his 
ticket of admission, then quietly shut the door upon him and 
returned to their places. The shade of the departed judge Lynch 
must have rejoiced at such an angelic administration of his law I 

The course of the canal lies through the country of Salina, 
close to ©anandaigua Lake, where immense quantities of salt are 
made : four or five villages, each with six or seven hundred 
inhabitants, have grown up from this cause. Some of these salt 
springs are reserved by the state, but by far the greater portion 
are in the hands of individuals, who pay, instead of rent, a small 
duty by the bushel to the government. The fine salt is made by 
the evaporation of the brine by artificial heat ; the coarse or solar 
saltj by the gradual effect of the sun, and is a very pure muriate 
of soda : no less than three thousand millions of bushels of all 
kinds are made in the year. Long before the visits of the white 
men, the Indians had discovered these valuable springs, and used 
them as far as their narrow means allowed. The reedy, ugly 
Lake of Canandaigua, though in the midst of this district, is 
untouched by briny flavor. 

Seven hours of this not veiy agreeable journey carried us to 
Syracuse, thirty-eight miles from Lake Ontario ; but there a 
modern tyrant, the conductor of an omnibus, forced us off without 
breathing time to the cars of the Utica railroad. In this town 
several lines of roads, railways, and canals meet : even our 
hurried drive through it showed that the usual high pressure 
progress was at work here also. 

Every one knows American railway cars by description ; they 
are certainly far from comfortable ; this is a single line of track, 
the rate of travelling about sixteen miles an hour. A great part 
of the way lay through the forest, very grim and desolate, poor 
trees crowded up together, choking each other's growth ; every 
here and there, where they had been burned, the tall black 
charred skeletons were dismal to behold. At each seven or eight 
miles of distance are thriving villages, built with the solidity and 
rapidity of the city of the pack of cards, and all named by Mrs. 
Malaprop — Rome is situated in a valley, and looks as if it had 
been built in a day. There are also one or two battle fields, 
where kindred blood was shed during the revolutionary war. 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 



Utica is a large and flourishing town, or city, as they love to 
call it. Through all these districts the stranger is astonished at 
the appearance of prosperity in every place and person ; he sees 
no bad or even small houses, no poor or idle people ; every place 
of business, transit, or amusement, is always full ; lecture rooms, 
railway cars, theatres, hotels, banks, markets, crowded to burst- 
ing. There is something infectious in this fever of activity, and 
I soon found myself rushing in and out of railway depots and 
dining rooms just as fast as any one else. The New York State 
Lunatic Asylum is here ; it looks large and commodious, but there 
my praise of the building ends. 

I do not think it was at all a mistake to visit Trenton Falls, even 
so soon after having seen Niagara. The body of water and the 
scenery around are so different, that no ideas of comparison inter- 
fere with the enjoyment of their beauty ; a tedious journey of 
sixteen miles thither from Utica and back again, on a sultry 
summer's day, spoiled the effect much more. They are very 
beautiful, indeed more beautiful than anything I ever saw in the 
States ; the immediate neighborhood is almost untouched by the 
cultivation of man ; the deep gorge of the stream lies hidden in 
the woods, till you are upon its brink. For nearly two miles, the 
river leaps and races, races and leaps again, till it comes to rest 
in the plains below ; in one place there are three divisions of the 
stream, tumbling into a deep chasm in a direct fall of nearly a 
hundred feet in height ; lofty, bare cliffs of limestone close it in. 
To get a proper view of this scene, you must nerve your heart 
for a far more perilous undertaking than the visit to Termination 
Rock. The only path is very narrow and shelving, close to the 
giddy waters, and overhung with gloomy rocks. There is an 
iron chain to hold on by, fastened into the cliff side ; few travellers 
can dispense with its assistance. 

In the neighborhood of Utica, and on the south-east, the country 
is fertile and well cultivated. The line of the Erie Canal, passing 
directly through this district, gives vitality to all the towns and 
villages on its banks, lying in the rich valley of the Mohawk. 
The great line of railroad is also of much benefit to them : by it, 
we turned our course to Schenectady, passing through some fine 
farm lands and settlements ; here and there factories for cloth, 
6* 



10 HOCHELAGA; OR, 



paper, anything and everything. In a thinly-peopled tract like 
this, where man's labor is so costly, it seems madness to turn to 
manufactures ; but they do it, succeed, and become rich : nothing 
fails in this extraordinary country, except the stranger's old- 
fashioned notions of political economy ; these are not worth a 
straw here : wherever there is a " water privilege," some sort of 
machinery is sure to be erected, and people come from the clouds 
to purchase the productions. 

But a few miles to the north of this busy district, lies a wilder- 
ness of great extent, called the county of Hamilton : some of it is 
as little known or explored as the islands of the South Seas a 
hundred years ago ; it is one of the great lines of travel ; its land 
and timber are not supposed to be of much value. The parts 
which are known abound with lakes and streams, richly stored 
with trout and other choice fish ; while numbers of deer dwell 
undisturbed among its shades. The people of the neighborhood 
can spend their time much more gainfully than with gun or angle, 
and the pleasure of the sport is unknown to them. 

There are sulphur springs at two places south of the line of 
railway — Sharon and Cooperstown ; both are described as very 
picturesque ; the waters are said to cure all bodily ailments. 

At Schenectady we stopped for the night ; it is Syracuse and 
Utica over again. In 1690, on one of those nights of horror in the 
Indian wars, the Mohawks swept it with a sudden ruin — leaving 
nothing for the morning light but ashes and the dead. In 1845 
we found a very good hotel there, where we slept comfortably 
without any dreams of the Indians. I found in the morning I had 
indulged too much to be in time for the regular breakfast, but 
there was a side table laid in the corner, where one or two 
stragglers from the town and I seated ourselves : one of the 
waiters having put on the table what was necessary for his and 
our use during the meal, sat down himself also, and entered into 
conversation with us. He spoke quite freely, but at the same 
time respectfully — his manner was very proper. I talked to him 
a good deal ; on many points he seemed wonderfully well informed 
for a man in his situation ; some of his notions of England were 
rather amusing. He understood that it was quite an usual thing 
for an English lord, when in a bad humor, to horsewhip his 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 11 

servants all round, particularly on a day when his gun had failed 
to kill a sufficient number of foxes. Perhaps you may think the 
ideas of the waiter at a country inn not worth being printed ; I 
think they are, in a land whei'e his share of the government is as 
great as that of a doctor of laws or a millionnaire. 

My Georgian friends expressed much surprise when they 
heard the waiter had been my companion at breakfast ; but I 
have seen similar cases in several instances ; the horsewhipping 
notion did not astonish them in the least. Our ideas o^ their per- 
fect equality are just as much exaggerated as theirs are of our 
tyranny of class ; servants generally are called servants, and 
address their superiors as Sir and Ma'am ; porters, cab-drivers, 
and all those classes of functionaries the same. I think there is 
very little difference between their manners and those which we 
are accustomed to, and they are quite as civil and obliging. 

There is one character perfectly abominable in America ; you 
not unfrequently meet with an emigrant from the old country, 
who hates the land. which gave him birth; usually hunted out 
of it for crime, he detests the laws he has outraged ; from his 
former fears of their just punishment, he reviles them and his 
countrymen ; if ever you meet with unprovoked rudeness or in- 
sult, if ever you observe a more than ordinary length of hair, 
nasal twang, and offensive speech and manner, the chances are 
ten to one that you have met with an outcast Englishman. 

About mid-day, we arrived at an immense hotel at Saratoga ; 
my Georgian friend introduced me to the proprietor, who shook 
hands with me and hoped I might enjoy my visit ; in short his 
reception was such as if he had invited me to pass some time 
with him, and he was in reality as kind and attentive as if I had 
been an invited guest. There were I think four hundred people 
staying in the hotel ; all the rooms were full, but our host pro- 
cured me a very nice lodging in a house close by, and I lived at 
the hotel table. My bed-room had folding doors opening into the 
sitting-room of the family. Unfortunately for me, within there 
was a piano, and the young lady of the house was learning the 
" Battle of Prague." The next morning, returning sooner than 
was expected after breakfast, I disturbed her in sweeping my 
bed-chamber ; not to lose time, she laid aside her brush and ran 



12 HOCHELAGA : OR, 



over a few of the most difficult passages, till I left the room clear 
for her to resume her more homely occupation. I do not 
give this little sketch with a sneer — far from it : I tell it with 
pleasure and admiration. Would to Heaven that some of our 
poor household drudges had such innocent pleasures ! I would 
rather hear one of them play the " Battle of Prague " than listen 
to Listz for a week. 

I was very much amused and interested at Saratoga ; there 
cannot be a better opportunity for acquiring a general idea of the 
national character in a short time, than a stay there in the autumn 
offers. I was introduced to hundreds of people, all shook hands, 
as part of the ceremony, though the weather was so very hot ; 
there were Southerners and Northerners, Downeasters and West- 
erns, New-Yorkers and Bostonians, all different from each other 
in detail, and very different from Europeans. Though many of 
the young gentlemen adopted the newest Parisian style of dress 
and wearing the hair, I could have sworn to them anywhere ; 
there was something Transatlantic about them which could not 
be mistaken. Some few of the elder men, who had travelled and 
seen the world, were in their appearance and conversation free 
from any peculiarity. I could readily have supposed them fel- 
low-countrymen ; it is never an unwelcome thing to an American 
to be mistaken for an Englishman, no matter how much he may 
disapprove of our country and institutions. 

There were several families of the higher classes of society, 
people who would be admired and sought after anywhere ; but 
there was of course a very large alloy of the ill-bred and obscure, 
who, perhaps by some lucky turn of trade, had got together a 
sufficient number of dollars for their summer amusement without 
ever before having had the leisure or the means to play gentility. 
Opposite to me at dinner, on the first day, sat a party of this lat- 
ter class, whose conversation I enjoyed even as much as the very 
good fare on the table. A gentleman addressed the lady next 
him, " Ma'am, are you going to Bosting (Boston) right off?" She 
answered, " No, Sir, I reckon I'll make considerable of a cir- 
cumlocution first," and in this style they continued. 

In the evening there was a " hop " as they called it, graced by 
many very pretty faces. A young English officer, waltzing 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 13 

away at a great pace with the possessor of one of the prettiest of 
them, was tripped up by a nail in the floor, and fell, his partner 
sharing his misfortune. The young lady's mother, highly in- 
dignant, rushed forward to pick her up, saying to the unhappy 
delinquent, " I tell you. Sir, I'll have none of your British tricks 
with my daughter." I suppose the old lady's wrath was as easily 
soothed as roused, for I saw the young couple spinning away 
again in a few minutes as if nothing had happened. The higher 
class of visitors did not mix much in these general amusements, 
seldom appearing but at meals, and sometimes not even then. 

Riding, driving, playing at bowls, and drinking the very nasty, 
but, I believe, very valuable waters, were the pastimes of the 
day. Dinner was at half-past three, in an enormous room, or 
rather two rooms thrown into one, at right angles to each other ; 
upwards of five hundred people sat down each day, some of the 
ladies dressed splendidly for the occasion, as if for a ball ; they 
looked rather odd I thought afterwards, walking about in these 
gay costumes under the verandahs, or in the large and well kept 
gardens ; but there was much beauty and grace to carry it oflT, 
the shape of the head and neck is universally very good, eyes 
brilliant, features regular ; the failing is in the complexion and 
the outline of the figure : many of them dressed again for tea, 
and, twice a week, on the nights of a ball, they dressed again 
for that. 

After dinner the gentlemen lounged about or sat outside the 
bar-room reading the papers, some of them in the extraordinary 
attitudes we have so often heard of, while they " cigared it," 
" mint-juleped it," or " sherry-cobblered it," as their diflferent 
tastes suggested. There were billiard-tables and shooting-gal- 
leries, where gentlemen with frightful beards and moustaches 
abounded. 

Nor is there any lack of opportunity for indulging the taste 
for literary pursuits ; little boys are perpetually going about 
tempting you with sixpenny worth of Scott, Bulwer, D 'Israeli, 
and indeed all popular authors, with coarse and clumsy transla- 
tions of French works, from the filthy wit of Rabelais, to the 
refined and insidious immoralities of George Sand. We were 
fortunate enough to be at Saratoga at the same time with a lady 



14 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



from New York, who sang brilliantly for the party assembled in 
the public room, and with as good taste as good nature and self- 
possession. 

There appears to be a great, and, to our ideas, a very objec- 
tionable facility, of making acquaintances in such a motley con- 
course. A good deal of rivalr}*. exists between the people from 
the different Atlantic cities. The peculiarities of each are 
sirongly marked, especially among the ladies ; those of New York 
were the liveliest, the gayest dressers, and the best dancers ; those 
of Boston more reserved, but with greater powers of conversa- 
tion ; they were, besides, more carefully educated. The southern 
men were expensive in their style of living, off-hand in their 
manner, but little nasal in their accent, gay and courteous — the 
northerns more moderate and tolerant, better informed and more 
sincere. Both are absurdly sensitive to the opinions of foreigners 
concerning their country ; touched in every thought and feeling 
by the passion for traffic ; jealous, boastful, and wanting in indi- 
vidual character and freedom of thought. This is my opinion 
of their dark side ; what I have said is enough to condemn me 
for ever in their eyes ; they cannot bear censure, or even condi- 
tional praise. Now I turn to the far pleasanter task of speaking 
of their virtues, virtues possessed by no people in a greater de- 
gree. They are brave, friendly, and hospitable ; keen, intelli- 
gent, and energetic ; generous, patriotic, and lovers of liberty. 
Such are the people in whom we see "the Promise of the 
Future;" even their very faults are necessary ingredients of 
character for the fulfilment of their great destiny ; their virtues 
enable us to contemplate that destiny with less of dread. 

I have had the happiness of meeting with many Americans 
who enjoyed so large a share of the good qualities that they had 
no room for the evil ones ; men by every thought and action 
deserving of that proud title, " beyond a monarch's gift yet within 
a peasant's reach" — the title of gentleman. It is a pleasure and 
a duty to express, as I do now, my heartfelt gratitude to some 
amongst them for their kindness and hospitalities. 

Within four miles of Saratoga is the village of Stillwater, 
memorable as the scene of Sir John Burgoyne's disaster in 1777 ; 
a disaster of so much influence on the fate of the revolutionary 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 15 

war, that it may be almost said to have been decisive. Who 
dare speculate on what would have been our position now had 
that struggle ended differently ? The man whose voice was infe- 
rior only to prophecy foretold ruin to liberty in the success of our 
policy at that time, and the. freedom of the human race in its 
defeat. By -the light of Lord Chatham's wisdom, we may read 
the tale of disaster in that fatal war, with a resigned and tem- 
pered sorrow for the splendid heritage then rent away from us 
for ever. 

The army of the ill-fated Burgoyne was the best equipped and 
the most effective of any that had entered the field during the 
contest : high hopes were cherished of its success, but the insur- 
mountable difficulties of the country, the inclement weather, and 
the energy and skill of its opponents, were its ruin. Harassed 
by fatigue and imperfectly supplied, its fate was hastened by two 
successive actions — the first a victory, the second a stubborn 
resistance, but both equally mischievous in their result. 

After the second engagement, on the night of the 7th of Octo- 
ber, Burgoyne silently abandoned his position. Embarrassed by 
heavy rains and deep roads, as well as by the number of the wound- 
ed, they retreated for three days. On the 10th they took their final 
stand above the Fishkill river. To retreat further was impossi- 
ble. The Americans swarmed on every side in overwhelming 
numbers. Supplies failed ; water could be got only at the price 
of blood, for the river was guarded by the deadly rifle ; every 
part of the camp was exposed to the cannon of the enemy and 
the marksman's aim ; there was no place of safety ; as long as 
daylight lasted they were shot down like deer. In six days the 
spirit of English chivalry would not bow ; at length, hunger and 
toil, the deadly sickness and the hopeless struggle, could be no 
longer borne ; on the 17th of October, Sir John Burgoyne and 
all the survivors of his troops surrendered as prisoners of war to 
General Gates and the republican army. From that day America 
was a nation. 

I have often been surprised that they do not attach more im- 
portance to this event and to the services of General Gates ; but 
an American cannot bear that any one should share the laurels 
of his Washington. 



16 HOCHELAGA; OR, 



Wherever the real story of Saratoga is told, the names of two 
high-bred women will not be forgotten. In courage and endur- 
ance they were an example to the bravest ; in tenderness and 
devotion they were themselves again. Nor will due praise be 
withheld from the generous victors for their considerate kindness 
to Lady Harriet Ackland and the Baroness Reidesel.- 

Some time after the close of the war, Captain Ackland, the 
husband of the former lady, who had been badly wounded at 
Saratoga and shared in the generous treatment she had received, 
on some public occasion in England heard a person speaking of 
the Americans in terms of hatred and contempt, and at last call- 
ing them " cowards." He indignantly rebuked the libeller of his 
gallant captors ; a duel ensued the next morning, and the noble 
and grateful soldier was carried home a corpse. 

The morning I left Saratoga was made remarkable to me by 
almost the only instance of rudeness, or indeed of the absence 
of active kindness, which I met with in America. As I was 
walking in front of the hotel, a button came off the strap on the 
instep of my shoe. Seeing a shoemaker's shop close by, I 
stepped in, and in very civil terms asked the man to sew it on for 
me ; he told me to sit down on a box and give him the shoe, 
which I did. He turned it round, looked at it, and then at me, 
and "guessed I was a Britisher." I owned "the soft impeach- 
ment." He then put the shoe on the counter, and took no further 
notice of me. After about ten minutes, I meekly observed that 
as I was going by the twelve o'clock cars, I should be much 
obliged if he could sew it on at once. He " guessed " that he 
had not time then, but that, if I called in a quarter of an hour, 
perhaps "he'd fix it." I hopped over for my shoe, and, curious 
to see how the affair would end, returned in about twenty minutes, 
and again urged my request. " Sit down and wait," was the 
stern reply. Another quarter of an hour passed, and though my 
patience was not in the least exhausted, I was afraid of missing 
the train by indulging my curiosity as to his intentions, so I again 
alluded to my button, and to my time being limited. He then 
called to a person in an inner room, " Fix this button for that 
man on the box if you have nothing else to do." A minute suf- 
ficed. I laid a dollar on the table, asking what I owed him, and 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 17 

at the same time thanking him as quietly for the job as if he had 
been all kindness. He threw me the change, deducting a shil- 
ling for the button, and as I left the shop said, " Well, I guess 
you're late now." His guess was, however, a bad one, for I was 
just in time. 

I confess my anger rose a little, a very little, but I drove it 
down, and determined, above all, that I would not let the rude act 
of one unchristian churl give me even for a moment a false im- 
pression of a great and generous people. 

With much regret, I parted with my Georgian friends here. 
My next destination was Albany. I had to retrace my steps to 
Schenectady ; thence to Albany is sixteen miles, over a tract of 
sandy land, covered with stunted pines, of rather a dreary cha- 
racter. The cultivation shows that there human labor is more 
valuable than land ; there was no attempt at anything like neat- 
ness or ornament in the few farms. 



18 HOCHELAGA: OR, 



CHAPTER II. 

Albany — West-Point— New York. 

When you arrive at the entrance of an American town by the 
rail cars, the locomotive is removed and horses are harnessed 
thereto instead ; the railways are continued through the level 
streets to the depot, usually in some central place, and perhaps 
on the way you may be set down at the very door of your hotel. 

Albany is one of the oldest cities of the Union ; the choice of 
its situation proves the judgment of the men of those days to 
have been very good. The name was given in honor of James 
II., then Duke of York and Albany ; but it had previously been 
called after half a dozen Dutchmen at different times, probably 
quite as worthy people as he whose baptism has been most per- 
manent. This place is the capital of the State of New York, 
and is rich in very creditable public buildings ; the museums, 
lecture-rooms, academies, and other educational arrangements, 
are very good ; there is a handsome square and neat walks shaded 
by trees — an improvement which we do not sufficiently cultivate 
in England. The population is thirty-five thousand ; during the 
summer it is said that a thousand passengers pass through it on 
an average every day. 

The names of great numbers of the people are Dutch, but their 
character is become purely American. The hotels are very 
good, as indeed they now are all through the States, that is, 
good of their kind, for I do not like their system of management. 

About a mile off, from a height over the Foxes-kill, there is a 
magnificent view of the town, the beautiful Catskill mountains, and 
part of the Hudson river. At Albany I met with some very 
pleasing people, and with the unvarying American kindness and 
hospitality ; but 1 cannot go quite so far as an enthusiastic histo- 
rian of the town, who says, " There are few cities of the same 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 19 



size anywhere which can exhibit a greater or more agreeable 
variety of society and manners. In Albany may be found talent 
and learning, accomplishment and beauty. The towns of Europe 
of the same size and relative importance can in this respect bear 
no sort of comparison with it." Though this sort of flourish, and 
the feelings which dictate it, are exceedingly ridiculous to stran- 
gers, I believe them to be greatly effective among the Americans 
in fostering a love of country, and that thus they are a positive 
element of strength. If you persuade a man that he possesses 
any particular good quality, the chances are that he will acquire 
it. 

I met in my travels with several charming instances of this, 
their happy conviction of superiority in anything and everything. 
A young lady from a small town in Georgia told me that a friend 
of hers, a gentleman just returned from Europe, had not seen so 
much beauty in London and Paris put together as in the city of 
Augusta, where she lived. She looked thoroughly persuaded of 
the truth of his statement, and exceedingly pretty at the same 
time. 

Their great admiration of all that belongs to themselves would 
appear more amiable, if they did not so often illustrate it by un- 
just and absurd comparisons. A very intelligent man, who 
showed me the Mint at Philadelphia, pointed to a machine for 
stamping coins, of which he seemed very proud ; he was not con- 
tent with telling me that it was a very fine machine, but must 
needs add that it was " allowed to be the finest in the world." As 
I had seen many quite as fine among the button-makers at Bir- 
mingham, the statement lost some of its efiect upon me. 

I went down the Hudson in one of the splendid boarded steam- 
ers which torture its waters day and night. We passed to the 
left the lands of the Van Rennsslaer and Livingston Patent — 
as they are called — the Tipperary of America. These estates 
are held from original royal grants by the descendants of the 
first possessors. They#re of great extent, and would be of im- 
mense value under a strong government. The tenantry paid the 
very moderate rent charged on their farms pretty regularly till 
some years ago, when they came to a determination to put a stop 
to such an old fashioned and disagreeable custom ; they there- 



20 HOCHELAGA: OR, 



fore •' repudiated " the rent, and tarred and feathered the men 
sent to collect it. The militia of the State was called out, but 
they were like the spirits of the " vasty deep " and would not 
come. At length, the anti-renters murdered two of their oppo- 
nents ; this turned the tide of public feeling against them, and 
more active steps were taken to put them down. The attair has 
since ended in a compromise, the landlords being glad to get any- 
thing they could. 

I was rather disappointed with the much extolled beauty of the 
Hudson river, except with West Point, where I stopped, and with 
its neighborhood : that is indeed worthy of great praise, but is 
still far inferior to the St. Lawrence, at, and below our beautiful 
Quebec — I find myself already infected with the spirit of compa- 
rison. The military college of West Point stands on a high table- 
land in a magnificent situation ; there is a very good hotel near 
it. As the land belongs to the government, the license forbids 
the use of any fermented liquor in the house or neighborhood, on 
account of the students. In summer, many people stay here for 
the enjoyment of the scenery, and the air which is purity itself. 

The buildings belonging to the institution are, I presume, 
meant to show all the different styles of architecture, ancient and 
modern, being varied in the most fantastic manner. The rooms 
where the cadets sleep are small and inconvenient, those for 
study are rather better. When I was there, the young men 
were encamped on the common, with a guard mounted and all 
the arrangements of military life ; several guns and mortars, of 
rather a primitive appearance, were placed in front of them. 
The uniform is a light grey, and rather unsightly. The number 
of cadets is two hundred and fifty, by Act of Congress ; the age 
of admission from sixteen to twenty ; the length of time neces- 
sary to qualify for a commission, four years, during which period 
they receive sixty pounds a year. Thirty-four officers and pro- 
fessors are attached to the institution. All officers of the army 
must pass through this ordeal, and a verfi severe one it is ; fully 
one half fail. The course of study resembles much that at Wool- 
wich in nature and quantity, but the system of discipline is widely 
different. 

At Woolwich everything is trusted to the honor of the cadet; 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 21 

his punishment is an arrest by the word of his officer ; no one 
watches that he keeps it. Often for a week together, he is con- 
fined to his room for some boyish freak, looking at his compa- 
nions playing at cricket or football outside, and longing to join 
them ; but he is shut in by something far more effectual than 
bolts or bars — by his honor ; whatever other rules he may vio- 
late, to break that is unknown. Again, when an irregularity is 
committed, and the offender cannot be identified, the officer asks 
for him on parade ; the culprit instantly follows and says, " I did 
it," and is punished accordingly. To establish a system of this 
sort among boys formerly from fourteen — now from fifteen — 
years of age upwards, is a very delicate and difficult matter, but 
when accomplished, it is invaluable ; the boy must be thoroughly 
corrupt who does not imbibe a spirit of truth and honesty under 
its influence. It teaches to love what is great and good, and hate 
all that is false, or mean, or cruel. 

At West Point, to establish a system like this would be almost 
impossible. An officer of the institution told me that sometimes 
boys arrived at the college utterly ignorant of everything, espe- 
cially of the difference between right and wrong ; they find it 
more difficult to qualify many of their pupils in matters of honor 
and 'principle than in mathematics and fortification. The ap- 
pointment of the cadets rests with members of Congress, each 
having one ; in spite of this, and of its being of such essential 
consequence to their army, there is every year the bitterest oppo- 
sition to the rate for the expenses of the college. A great ground 
of jealousy is, that there is decidedly aristocratical feeling among 
the officers of the army. I have had the pleasure of knowing 
many ; America may well be proud of them, they are highly 
educated and gentlemanly, upright and honorable, zealous and 
efficient in their profession ; with the greatest pleasure I bear 
witness that I have met with no exceptions. They are a most 
valuable class as citizens, and their high tone of feeling and good 
manners is not without -an influence on society. They at least 
are clear of the eternal struggle for gain, and have leisure and 
taste for cultivating the graces of life. The enemies of America 
may rejoice when the institution of West Point is abandoned by 
the Government. 



22 HOCHELAGA; OR, 



The senior class of the cadets are allowed to go on leave each 
year for three months ; but many, on account of the distance of 
their homes, do not avail themselves of the privilege. Till within 
the last few years, the different services were chosen by the senior 
cadets, who had the power, as follows : — engineers, topographical 
engineers, artillery, infantry, cavalry. Now I believe the ca- 
valry has become the favorite service, and is usually taken by 
the most successful student. The pay of the officers is rather 
more than in the English service, and they are besides rendered 
much more independent by the cheapness of living, and by not 
being liable to mess expenses. The promotion is by seniority up 
to the rank of colonel, the other steps are by selection. At the 
chapel at West Point, the Church of England service is always 
performed ; all the cadets are obliged to attend it, whatever their 
religious faith may be. One of the officers kindly gave me a 
place in his pew the Sunday I was there ; the decorous conduct 
of the young congregation was highly praiseworthy. At present 
nearly all the officers of the army are members of the Church of 
England, or, as it is called in America, the Episcopalian Church. 

I cannot speak so favorably of the rank and file of the army ; 
one third of them are Irish and Germans of the very lowest class. 
Although their term of enlistment is only for thi'ee or five years, 
thirty in a hundred desert annually. 

Their pay is about a shilling a day above the cost of their 
clothing and living. The uniform is not calculated to show 
them off to advantage ; their performance under arms is very in- 
ferior, at drill only I mean, for it is known that they can fight 
very well. Their barracks are generally much better than those 
of our troops. At first sight it appears strange that when the 
officers are so very good, the private soldiers should be so much 
the reverse ; but the evil of the short period of service, rendered 
greater by desertion, and by their discontent at being worse off 
than their civilian fellow-citizens, makes them but indifferent ma- 
Uriel. They are not regarded in a very kindly or respectful 
light by the lower classes of the people. It seems an instinct of 
the Anglo-Saxon race to dislike regular soldiers, though they 
themselves make such good ones ; perhaps it is from the military 
being associated in their ideas with despotic power. 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 23 

I heard dreadful accounts of the suffering and losses of the 
A^merican troops during the Florida war. There is a neat monu- 
ment at West Point to the memory of the men of a small force 
destroyed by the Indians, after a most gallant defence. There is 
another to Kosciusko. The cost of war to the United States is 
enormous, the expenses of the commissariat incredible : it is cal- 
culated that each Florida Indian taken or slain cost^ I think, ten 
thousand dollars, and many lives — but the latter were not reckon- 
ed so jealously. 

The total strength of the regular army, including officers, is 
under nine thousand men ; their militia force is, however, enor- 
mous, being, in fact, the whole population fit to bear arms. A 
gifted English traveller, who lately published letters from Ameri- 
ca, quoting from a pamphlet by Judge Jay, states that the cost of 
this force is fifty millions of dollars a year, that of the army 
twelve millions, making a total of thirteen millions of pounds 
sterling — more than the cost of the army and navy of England 
put together. In estimating the expense of the militia to the 
country, the principal item is the loss of the labor of the popula- 
tion while drilling. 

General Scott, the Commander-in-Chief of the United States 
army, was staying at West Point Hotel at the time of my visit ; 
he is a very fine-looking soldier, of dignified and pleasing man- 
ners. He was much distinguished for skill and valor in the 
sanguinary campaign of 1814, and is now the great living object 
of that strong love of successful military leaders so remarkable in 
his countrymen ; he enjoys unbounded and deserved popularity. 

I left West Point, and its enlightened and gentlemanly inhabit- 
ants, with reluctance. The Hudson, thence to New York, is 
still beautiful, but the best is passed. Many objects of interest 
were pointed out to me by the way ; that whicli most interested 
me, as being most characteristic of the country, was an immense 
work erected in the river, round a place where, years ago, Cap- 
tain Kidd, the celebrated pirate, is said to have sunk his treasure- 
laden ship, in order to baffle his pursuers. I believe that tradi- 
tion and dreams are the only grounds for fixing on this place. 
Thousands of dollars have been expended in the search ; that 
they have got hold of some wreck or other there is no doubt, but 



24 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



whether the right one or not remains to be proved. When the 
works are finished, the water is to be pumped out, and Captain 
Kidd's honest earnings are to reward the speculative adventur- 
ers. 

On the right banlv, for twenty miles — beginning about three 
miles above New York — are the Palisades, a range of rocks 
faced with natural columns, varying from fifty to four hundred 
feet in height. In one place they rise perpendicularly from the 
water's edge ; their appearance reminded me of the cliffs near 
the Giant's Causeway. 

The island on which New York now stands, was discovered by 
Henry Hudson, an Englishman, sailing under the Dutch flag, in 
1609. The Indian tribes inhabiting it were called Manhattans 
(the People of the Whirlpool), for near at hand is Hellgate, 
where the waters rush and eddy with great violence. In 1613, 
New Amsterdam was founded by the Dutch ; fifty years after- 
wards the English wrested it from them, and called it New York ; 
for one year, 1673, the former possessors regained it, but yielded 
it again by treaty, and it was held by the English till the revolu- 
tion ; at that period it contained only tw^enty-four thousand inha- 
bitants. The Americans point with great complacency to its 
much larger rate of increase since their becoming free from Eng- 
lish rule ; but it is an undoubted fact, that the rate of increase in 
the whole Union since the separation, has been precisely the 
same as before. The population of New York at present is three 
hundred and eighty thousand ; more than ninety thousand of these 
are natives of the British Islands. 

There is but little doubt that, for many years to come, New 
York must be the capital of the United States. The Hudson, the 
canals, and railroads open to it nearly as great an extent of coun- 
try as the Mississippi does to New Orleans ; while the superior 
climate, the greater energy of the people, the excellence of the 
harbor, and the shorter voyage to Europe, cast the balance de- 
cidedly in its favor. Many far-seeing politicians tell you that 
Cincinnati or St. Louis, the great inland cities, must, even in the 
time of living man, be the seat of government. That Washing, 
ton can long remain the capital appears impossible ; the increase 
of the interior States, and the establishment of American popula- 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 25 

tion and commerce on the Pacific coast, every day more immi- 
nent, will naturally throw the centre of political power upon the 
rivers of the West. 

This island of New York is long and narrow, the greatest 
breadth not more than two miles. On the west lies the Hudson, 
still and deep ; on the east an arm of the sea, called the East 
River, and the Harlem, which last joins the Hudson twelve miles 
above the city, by the Spuyten Duyvil Creek. To the south is 
the Bay of New York, spacious and sheltered, with anchorage 
for the largest ships ; the end of the island washed by it is now 
covered with buildings. The city still spreads northward, and as- 
sists also the rapid growth of largo towns on the opposite sides of the 
waters by its overflowing prosperity; ferry-boats without number 
ply to them all day long. 

Perhaps there is no place in the vvorld better situated for com- 
merce than this city of New York : deeply laden vessels, large 
enough to navigate the most distant seas, can discharge their car- 
goes, the handywork of the thickly peopled countries of the Old 
World, upon the very wharfs, receiving in return the productions 
of the exuberant soil of the New, the superabundance from 
the wants of its scanty population. 

In appearance, this is almost an European town ; foreigners 
from every nation swarm in the streets. The stranger, as he 
walks along, is positively confused by the bustle and activity ; his 
eyes are bewildered with advertisements and signboards up to the 
fourth story of the houses, printed in all sorts of shapes and colors 
to attract attention. The Broadway fs very long and very broad, 
the pavement bad and dirty, the buildings irregular ; the shops 
well stored, but far from handsome to the European eye ; the pub- 
lic conveyances showy, the private carriages generally quite the 
reverse. 

The heat in summer is very great : in the beginning of August 
the thermometer stood at 96° in the shade for several days, and 
once reached 100°. At this season, every one v/ho can afford the 
time and expense, leaves New York for a town in the north, the 
springs, or some of the numerous watering places along the coast. 
Newport is the most fashionable of these, having usurped the 
former position of Saratoga as the most select and popular resort ; 

PART II. 2 



26 HOCHELAGA; GR, 



the sort of life led by tbo visitors is much the same at all of 
them. 

A large portion of the Americans live altogether at hotels and 
boarding-houses, always sitting in public rooms, where every one 
possessing the requisite number of dollars to pay for board, may 
obtain admittance. It argues well for them that they can at these 
places allow of such general acquaintance : the fact is that, in 
many of them, veiy objectionable people do intrude themselves, 
but under the strictest necessity of propriety ; for, at the least sus- 
picion of their conduct or the slightest breach of decorum, they 
would be ignominiously ejected. This public life, led by so large 
a part of the people, leavens in no small degree the national cha- 
racter : the tone of feeling of each individual is formed by the 
masses, not by the narrow but more sacred influence of that of 
his household ; there is but little trick of manner or speech pecu- 
liar to a family; you can trace nothing closer than the State they 
may belong to. 

There is so little too of mutual dependence between members 
of the same family, that I cannot but think the bonds of affection 
lose much of their strength. Each man works and struggles on 
his own account : if his brother fails it is no affair of his, or if a 
man rises to eminence it does not at all follow that his relations 
should share in his elevation. I will not say that the Americans 
are deficient in the holy feeling of family love, but that certainly 
their institutions and habits of life tend to weaken it. By the 
system of boarding, a degree of luxury is obtained, quite beyond 
the reach of the small means here required, if they were applied 
to a separate establishment. 

At New York, the hotels are very numerous, the tables well 
supplied, and the arrangements carried on with clock-work regu- 
larity. One of these, the Astor House, is quite a curiosity from 
its great size, furnishing four hundred beds ; it is a granite build- 
ing, handsome and solid, in the best situation in the city, and fre- 
quented by people from all parts of Europe and from every State 
in the Union. 

A great number of buildings were burned down this summer, 
near the Battery. The destruction was hastened by a tremendous 
explosion, the cause of which remains still unknown. The ashes 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 27 

were scarcely cold before these wonderful people were again 
erecting houses and stores handsomer and better than those de- 
stroyed. There are annually twice the number of fires in New 
York that there are in London; the passage of a fire-engine 
causes no more excitement than that of an omnibus ; the brigades 
employed in this necessary duty are very numerous and well ar- 
ranged, consisting of many of the most respectable young men of 
the city, who are in consequence exempted from militia service. 
In Philadelphia they are so formidable a body that they can some- 
times afford to set the city authorities at defiance, and have lately 
occasioned considerable disturbances. 

There are great numbers of militia and volunteer corps at New 
York ; their drill on certain days appointed for the purpose is an 
object of great admiration to the citizens. Amongst others is a 
regiment of Highlanders, splendidly dressed with kilt and red 
coat, the exact uniform of the 42d. I thought Yankee-doodle 
sounded rather strangely on the bag-pipes. The Americans have 
a great love for military displays, the visitors to Canada in the 
summer are more' pleased at the parades and the bands of the 
English regiments than with anything else they see in their tra- 
vels there. 

The public amusements are very fair : a French company of 
some merit were performing at the Park Theatre. Niblo's gar- 
den — though not, I believe, considered fashionable among the New 
York exclusives, is a prettily arranged place, with a stage partly 
open to the air, where there is very tolerable acting. There are 
several other theatres, and a sort of peep-show and fire-work af- 
fair at the Castle on the Battery. 

There are numerous public buildings, many of them of great 
size, and very costly, but generally badly situated, and without 
much beauty. The Hall of Justice is a most extraordinary mas- 
ter-piece of ugliness ; it goes by the name of the Egyptian Tombs, 
and possesses about as much architectural grace as a pyramid. 
The Merchants' Exchange, to secure it from the fiery fate of its 
predecessor, is built of a very fine granite, no wood having been 
employed in the structure ; it is ornamented by eighteen magnifi- 
cent pillars, thirty-eight feet in height, each a solid mass of gra- 
nite. 



28 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



There are one hundred and sixty churches, the Presbyterian 
the most numerous, the Episcopalian the next. I heard a very 
eloquent and useful sermon in one of the latter : the fault was 
excess of ornament, and a constant effort for effect ; the clergyman 
wore his hair in the fashion of Young America, and a beard which 
gave him rather too much the appearance of a dragoon to be suit- 
able to the pulpit. The congregation was very numerous and 
attentive ; but there was no public pew or place for the poor. The 
Americans have made several alterations in the words of our Li- 
turgy, but the spirit is purely the same. Trinity Episcopalian 
Church, now nearly finished, is by far the handsomest building in 
New York ; it is in the very best style of modern ecclesiastical 
architecture, or rather of the judicious revival of the old. The 
Episcopalian Church is very rich in this State from former grants, 
now grojvn of great value ; its members are rapidly and steadily 
increasing here, as well as everywhere else in the Union. At the 
present time, the greater nur^ber of the wealthy and well-educated 
classes are Unitarians ; this is, decidedly, the most fashionable 
persuasion in the country. New York is, however, an exception 
to this rule ; here they possess only two churches. Out of the 
four hundred guests at the Astor House, I do not think that a dozen 
went to divine service anywhere. Except in New England, the 
young men of America do not seem to be ryuch of a church-going 
people. Tolerance among the members of the various sects is 
carried in most instances to the, extent of indifference : a very 
favorite boast is that " they all meet on the broad basis of Chris- 
tianity." In the provincial towns, in the list of churches for the 
different sects, you, not unfrequently find that of " Christian " 
among them. This is universal without being Catholic. 

The New York Theological Seminary is under the direction 
of the Presbyterians, but open to all Christian denominations. A 
valuable library is attached to this very liberal institution. 

In the Bay, opposite to the Battery, at the distance of half a 
mile, is Governor's Island, strongly fortified, and well situated for 
defence. Bedlov/'s and Ellis' Islands contribute to the means of 
resistance ; they would render the attack of the city a formidable 
undertaking ; great loss would be sustained in overcoming the 
difficulties J but steam power has changed the old axioms of 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 29 

naval science; for the modern school, Acre was the "First Pro- 
position," its ruins the demonstration. Heaven forbid that those 
guns which crushed the maiden stronghold of the East under 
their fire, should ever be called upon to disturb the echoes in the 
harbor of the great city of the West, unless in a salute of 
friendship ! 

There are several other islands less grim than these, said to be 
worth visiting, and adding much to the beauty of the Bay. Staten 
Island is a very favorite place for the pleasure-hunters of New 
York ; the little voyage thither and back gives, perhaps, the best 
opportunity of seeing the harbor and the city. The Croton Water 
Works, on the north side, are the glory of the State. For more 
than forty miles the stream is carried through an immense artifi- 
cial conduit, passing over ravines, and through tunnels, nnto two 
great reservoirs near New York : it is a magnificent work, worthy 
of the wonderful energy of this wonderful peopl^ip^The aqueduct 
over the Harlem River is a quarter of a mile in length, supported 
by eight arches, and built with great solidity, of handsome stone ; 
it runs a hundred and twenty feet over the river. No fewer 
than twenty other streams, some of them considerable in size, are 
passed in its course. 

There is much in the consideration of these great works pain- 
ful to an Englishman : the mind is furnished by Americans, the 
result is for their benefit, but the bone and sinew come from our 
islands. These proud and prosperous Republicans disclaim the 
laborer's common toil ; they are overseers, master bricklayers and 
carpenters, engineers, and clerks of works ; but the mere drudges 
are our countrymen. Their worldly condition is vastly improved 
by giving up their country ; their wages are twice as good as at 
home ; food much cheaper ; after three years they become natu- 
ralized, and enjoy the sweets of being solicited for their votes by 
the diflferent candidates for election with as much earnestness as 
their wealthy employers. In a few years, with common pru- 
dence and industry, they can save the means of purchasing and 
stocking a farm, and look forward to an evening of life of ease 
and plenty. Their children do not cry to them in vain for bread ; 
abundance dwells in their households, the best education is open 
to them ; and they have as good a chance of being President as 



30 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 

any other person's children, if they can only hit upon that happy 
medium between popularity and obscurity, which is necessary to 
please the majority without exciting their jealousy. 

It is very natural that this country should appear a Paradise to 
those who have left want and misery behind them ; they soon 
become thoroughly Americanized, and, sad to say, speak gene- 
rally of the land of their birth with anything but affection. They 
readily allow themselves to be convinced that the hard condition 
of the poor at home is the work of a tyrant aristocracy, enriched 
by their unrewarded toil, and imagine that a good catalogue of 
wrongs excuses their throwing off allegiance to their country ; 
by bitterness of speech they keep their resentment warm against 
it. At this present time, when the odious subject of war is in 
every mouth, none are more fierce against England than this 
class of people. An Irish waiter at an hotel in Boston told my 
servant that th^e were enc^gh British subjects in the States to 
defeat any force England could send out. This worthy at the 
same time used every inducement in his power to tempt the man 
to leave my service, telling him that it was a fine country, every 
one a gentleman. " As soon as I have done my day's work," 
said he, " I dress in my best clothes and walk about, or go into 
the smoking-room as well as any of them, with plenty of money 
in my pocket." In this class of people, where the higher motives 
act but little, who can be surprised at such feelings towards a 
country where their situation was so different ? 

The American ships, especially the ships of war, are filled 
with our seamen, but always in subordinate situations. In their 
employments, both by sea and land, they act on a principle of 
which we used to be justly proud — " a fair day's wages for a 
fair day's work." Their higher classes of public officials, how- 
ever, are exceptions to this rule ; their salaries are generally 
insufficient to be at all an equivalent to well-educated and gifted 
people, for the abandonment of other pursuits. 

An American, in arguing with an Englishman on the defects 
of the two countries, is sure to bring forward the condition of our 
millions as an effectual set off against slavery, repudiation, and 
plunder of copyright. They will seldom take into consideration 
the density of population in England, in proportion to the power 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 31 



of producing food to the extent that an Agrarian law could 
never remedy ; nor the infinite complications of interests in 
an old country, that cannot be disregarded in any measure of 
amelioration. 

To censure, in however measured and friendly a tone, of 
any of their national institutions, habits, or manners, this is 
their invariable apology when its truth is too obvious to be 
denied : — " We are so young a country." I must do the tender 
babe the justice to say, that it can swallow any quantity or 
quality of praise without the least injury to its delicacy, or even 
diminution of its appetite. 

The plentiful employment and prosperous condition of the 
working classes in this country are not without exceptions. In 
the reaction, which took place in. 1837, numbers v/ere thrown out 
of work, and in the winter of 1845-6, the damp cast on the 
movements of trade by the rumors of war has been fertile in evil 
influences to their interests. The value of houses and lands is 
also subject to very great fluctuations from similar causes : no 
commercial barometer is more sensitive than that of New York ; 
a cloud gathering in any part of the political horizon instantly 
affects it. 

The police of New York has long been famed for its inefficien- 
cy : a late alteration is not likely, I think, to add either to its 
usefulness or popularity. Its officers are dressed in plain clothes, 
and mingle with the people in the streets and all public places, 
without any distinguishing mark. I saw, the other day, a noisy 
sailor struggling violently between two of them, loudly proclaim- 
ing that they were common landsharks, and that he could tell by 
their clothes they were no policemen. This occurred near Five 
Points, a haunt of vice and misery, not yielding to St. Giles's, or 
the cite in Paris. There are a great number of negroes in New 
York, indeed this is an observation you make in every American 
town ; they are all laboring under the same social ban, but one 
degree better than slavery itself. Between them and the Irish 
the most determined animosity exists, being rivals for the hardest 
and simplest work that the community requires. The free negro 
is always a conservative ; whenever he is allowed a vote, he 
gives it to the Whig candidate. The Irish are as invariably 



32 ilOCHELAGA; OR, 



Democrats, and are so numerous and united a body, as materially 
to influence the elections. In some of the Western States, the 
native Americans hold them in equal fear and dislike. I met, in 
my travels, with a very amusing character from Chicago, in Illi- 
nois, whose fixed idea was horror of them ; " Dogins" was the 
namte by v/hich he called them. He said that their delight was 
in drinking and fighting, that they only agreed occasionally 
among themselves, that they might quarrel the better with any 
one else ; that in some parts of the Western country, they would 
soon have things all their own way. But he could not deny that 
they were hard-working, honest fellows, always ready to lend 
each other a helping hand, nor that their children made as good 
citizens as any others. 

The man of whom I speak was a capital sample of a certain 
class in the New States — active, energetic, boastful, vain, fiercely 
democratic, violent in his hatred of all European powers, particu- 
larly England ; quaint beyond measure in his conversation, and 
much given to ornament and illustration. He left New Orleans, 
his native place, some years since, on account of an awkward 
affair, in which a bowie knife acted a principal part, and is now 
a dealer in bread stuffs at Chicago. He said that war would be 
the making of the Western States ; that they would " chaw up" 
Canada in no time, and humble the bloody-minded aristocracy of 
England ; that France was only waiting for an opportunity to 
revenge Waterloo, and would assist them, or at least be neutral * 
that they would say to her as the Kentuckian said to Providence 
when he met the bear, " If you lend a hand to either, I say give 
it to the poor Kentuckian ; but if you don't, why only just look 
on, and you'll see an everlasting fine fight." He let out after- 
wards that the main reason why he was so warlike against the 
Britishers, v.as that " they are such etarnal fools as not to buy 
my bread-stuffs, and they just starving outright." These en- 
lightened views v/eie delivered on board a steam-boat, near the 
bar ; his eloquence being assisted by numerous draughts of " gin 
sling," he soon became exceedingly confused in his ideas, and 
ended by vowing eternal friendship to all creation. 

The roads and streets in some of the suburbs of New York are 
almost impassable in bad weather. A railroad runs from the 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 33 



heart of the city to Harlem ; as horses are used instead of loco- 
motives progress is but slow. The visitor to New York at the 
end of summer, will not be able to form any idea of its society ; 
letters of introduction are delivered to empty houses ; in some in- 
stances indeed he will find the doors and windows bolted, not 
even a servant remaining behind. Fortunately for him, however, 
a portion of the inhabitants have only fled to villas a few miles 
up the Hudson, where the usual kindness and hospitality of 
America is sure to be found. 



34 HOCHELAGA; OR, 



CHAPTER III. 

Philadelphia— Baltimore. 

I CROSSED tci Ne^ Jersey city, and thence started by railway for 
Philadelphia. Part of this six hours' travel is through the richest 
country I have yet seen in the United States. Pennsylvania has 
acquired or assumed the name of the " Empire State," from the 
fact of having on several important occasions cast the balance 
between the northern and southern interest. In the last presi- 
dential election, when the numbers were pretty equally balanced, 
her influence was decisive. The coal and iron resources of this 
district are now being developed to an immense extent, and are 
already a source of great wealth ; several contracts for Russia 
have been undertaken by companies on very profitable terms. 

The financial condition of this community is very interesting 
to many people in England ; their moral condition even more so ; 
for there is no doubt that want of inclination, more than want of 
means, was the cause of their defalcation. The principal oppo- 
nents of the taxation imposed to meet the interests of the debts are 
the German portion of the population, who are sunk in the gross- 
est ignorance, but are apparently numerous enough to influence 
the State Government. The stinging satire of a late eccentric 
and witty English divine had no small share in at length bringing 
about the tardy payment of interest which has lately been made. 
The people of the solvent States are very strong in denunciation 
of their less honest neighbors, and bitterly complain of the injus- 
tice of the general charge of repudiation against the American 
people, made by men unacquainted with the subject. But, as 
long as they are part and parcel of the same empire, and share 
in its advantages, they must not expect to escape altogether from 
the odium which attaches to such immense collective roguery. 

Many of the buildings at Philadelphia are very handsome, par- 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 35 

ticularly the banks; their outside appearance is sterling and 
solid. There are no small or shabby houses ; generally they are 
imposing-looking and showy, the doors white and very clean, 
with glass or plated handles ; the bricks are very bright red, the 
Venetian blinds very bright green. The rows of trees have a 
pleasing effect in the streets, while a large portion of the town 
has that quiet, lonely air about it, which marks some of the great 
squares of London ; not that Philadelphia is by any means an 
exception to the usual bustle and prosperity of American towns, 
but that there is more separation between the districts of business 
and those occupied by the dwellings of the wealthy classes. The 
principal streets are called by the names of trees, and are con- 
tained in the old couplet, 

*' Chestnut, walnut, spruce, and pine. 
Market, larch, and peach and vine." 

Those crossing these main channels of communication are known 
by numbers. 

I went to see an admirable painting by West, shown in a room 
with very good light ; but a horrible little daub was hung on 
either side of it. The Post Office, formerly the unfortunate United 
States Bank, is very handsome ; but the Girard College, outside 
the town, is by far the handsomest building on the American 
continent. It is a square, each face the same, and bearing some 
resemblance to that of the Madeleine in Paris, but it is built of 
pure and solid white marble inside and out, pillars and roof, the 
marble white as snow. There are two other blocks of buildings 
of the same material on either side, of a heavy style, rather mar- 
ring the effect. This College is built by the will of a French 
banker, who left an immense fortune to build and endow it for the 
education of orphan children, and to provide for them afterwards 
in life ; from what I hear, the building will have absorbed most of 
the legacy. The testator insisted that the education should be 
wholly secular ; indeed, no one suspected of being a clergyman 
is allowed to enter the College at all. 

This " city of brotherly love " has been notorious lately for 
several very serious disturbances — the burning of the Roman 
Catholic chapels, and the houses of the Irish population, followed 



3-3 , HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



by their retaliation, were attended with much loss of life. Again, 
fights between them and the negroes, and lastly the flames of war 
lighted by the fire brigades. 

On the dinner-tables, as you travel southward, there are many 
very original-looking dishes, with names as odd as their appear- 
ance, " mush," '' squash,'' &c. ; many of these are not at all 
disagreeable, though their flavor is not fine. At some places, as 
for instance near Charleston, these squash apples are in such in- 
credible abundance that they infect the air when they ripen. 
Among the delicacies of the sea, the soft crab is in great request ; 
he is much like ours in shape, but only wears a silken doublet 
instead of a coat of mail, and can be consequently carved and 
eaten v.ithout the trouble of undressing him. It is, however, only 
at certain seasons of the year that his costume is so suitable. The 
hotels were, as usual, full, many of the people being resident m 
them. This place is not quite free from the gold-chained and 
ringleted American dandy ; but generally there is still a little, a 
very little of the meek, sleek style of their Quaker ancestors, to 
be traced in the appearance and manner of their descendants of 
the present day. I do not think, however, that you observe the 
broad brims and single collars of the demure brotherhood much 
more than in other towns. 

The prison, penitentiary, workhouse, and charitable institutions 
may be briefly and satisfactorily described as well conducted and 
highly creditable to their founders and administrators. There 
is also a plain, unostentatious building of dull-colored brick, held 
in great respect by this new people ; it is the State House, where 
the independence of America was declared. They urge the 
traveller to visit this sacred and venerable place, dwelling much 
on its antiquity. It is strange that antiquities and military con- 
quest should be their great passion. Some malicious spirit seems 
to have suggested to them these unattainable ornaments, like that 
of the roc's pgg in the Arabian fable. The water-works of Phila- 
delphia are very fine and advantageous to the town ; but in them, 
as in wealth and trade, she must yield the palm to New York. 

In this town, as well as the others of America, there is certain- 
ly a very fair exterior of morality ; through their streets do not 
flow that noisy stream of glaring vice wliich in the uncontaminated 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 37 

mind at the same time attracts attention and creates disgust. But 
from this semblance let not the Christian and the moralist deceive 
themselves with the hope, that what does not meet the eye at the first 
moment, does not exist. The haunts of profligacy are as dark 
and as numerous as in the crowded cities of the Old World, and 
the silent and clandestine advertisements of their localities as 
little to be misunderstood. 

Every year some of the southern States afford an awful cata- 
logue of crime, violence, and blood. The population of a mixed 
race, their passions heated by a sultry climate, their uncontrolled 
impulses fed by the exertion of unlimited power over their slaves, 
reckless of their own and others' lives, scarcely educated, familiar 
with the bloodiest and most ferocious duelling — the voice of pub- 
lic opinion is but feeble against the blackest Cain, provided he 
can adduce some conceived wrong or insult in his defence. In a 
ball-room at New Orleans in the winter of 1844-5, a young man, 
while waltzing, trod on another's foot. When the dance was over 
he was asked in a private room if he had done this intentionally. 
The reply was a disavowal of any intention to give offence in the 
former instance, but accompanied by a hasty and angry remark 
upon being called to account. An altercation followed, and a 
blow was at length given by the man who had sought the expla- 
nation. They separated — the striker went into the dressing-room 
before re-entering the ball room, to cool his excitement and ar- 
range his hair. The other went down stairs, put on an appear- 
ance of composure, and asked the cabmen at the door if any of 
them could lend him a bowie knife, as he wanted to cut a piece 
off the sole of his shoe ; they either could not or would not fur- 
nish him with what he sought, so he went into a neighboring 
street, and purchased one at a cutler's shop, trying the sharpness 
of several of them on the counter before he made his choice ; he 
then went to the dressing-room where his victim was standing 
before the glass, and seized him unexpectedly from behind ; be- 
fore anyone could interfere he had stabbed him with three deadly 
wounds. 

This was no doubt a villainous murder, but in all countries in- 
dividuals may be found capable of any atrocity ; knowing this, 
the horror that such a crime creates is not accompanied by aston- 



38 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



ishment. But that a jury of twelve men could find a verdict of 
"justifiable homicide," and that the laws of any country should 
sanction such a verdict, is indeed startling to our ears. A friend 
of mine saw the murder, assisted in apprehending the assassin, 
wa^ a witness at the trial, heard the law of the case laid down, 
and the decision which followed — " an insult may be washed out 
in blood !" And the people who made this law, profess to hold the 
faith of " Him of Nazareth !" 

In other cases, where the sympathies of the people are against 
the accused, they sometimes cannot tolerate the forms of trial and 
the uncertainty of conviction. I only add one to thousands of 
previous well-known instances, when I give the following from 
one of the American papers now before me, headed " Arkansas 
Tragedy." " A mulatto boy had murdered a mother and two 
children — at least he was lodged in jail under the accusation. 
The people of Hickory Bridge, on hearing all the facts, became furi- 
ous ; the cry of ' burn the murderer,' soon ran from one to 
another. They suddenly became calm and resolute to their pur- 
pose, armed themselves with a gun and knife, and came down to 
the town last Saturday, deliberately broke open the jail-door, put 
a rope round the murderer's neck, and compelled him to run 
alongside their horses twenty-five miles, to the scene of the mur- 
der. They then formed a court, went through a trial, and found 
the prisoner guilty. He was to be burned ! The next day, Sun- 
day, they chained him to a tree, and had the wood piled round 
him to roast him by degrees. They kindled the fire, but the cry 
soon rose to hang him ; he joined in the cry. They did hang him 
to the gate-post, covered with the bloody shirt in which he was 
supposed to have committed the awful deed," 

The tone assumed by the press with regard to these atrocities 
is a dreadful index to the sentiments of the masses, whose tastes 
and feelings it reflects and consults. The first instance 1 have 
quoted, the murder at New Orleans, is gently chid as " the over- 
hasty resentment of a deadly insult ;" the other, as a " generous 
but unlawful outburst of indignation in an excitable people." 

For many years, Philadelphia was more a place for spending 
money than for making it ; there were a greater number of peo- 
ple possessing property independent of the fluctuations of trade, 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 39 



gifted with the leisure so necessa^ ^or the higher and more n- 
fining pursuits of life, and forming from community of tastes a 
compact and exclusive body, with more of the features of an 
aristocracy than any other city in the Union. Bv' they have not 
escaped from the levelling system of the last few years, and are 
now, to all public appearance at least, stirred up into the mixture 
of the democratic cauldron. 

Seven hours of railway and steamboat conveyance carried me 
to Baltimore. In entering Maryland the day's journey was ren- 
dered memorable to me, but it was by a very natural occurrence. 
At the last stopping-place before arriving at the town, I saw a 
sight which filled me with a new and strange emotion — I saw a 
being which not one among thousands of our English people has 
ever seen. He walked, he spoke, he was tall and erect, with 
active, powerful limbs, and shape of fair proportions. He was 
made in God's own image — but he was a slave ! Poorly, 
scarcely decently clad, he had carried a load of peaches to the 
station, which little negro boys sold in small baskets to the pas- 
sengers. He stood beside it directing the sale, between whiles 
staring at us with a stupid gaze. He had the receding forehead, 
coarse neck, and thick lips, the symptoms or effects of the merely 
animal instincts and intelligence. His complexion was very 
black, black as the cloud hanging over the land of his captivity, 
black as the sin of its accursed law. 

The suburbs of Baltimore were different from those of any 
American town I had yet seen ; there were as wretched houses, 
and as miserable-looking a population as those of Manchester or 
Birmingham could show. This, as every one knows, is the first 
city you meet with in travelling southward that is under the laws 
of slavery — that remarkable exception to the famous Declaration 
of Independence "that all men are equal ;" that exception being 
recognized as a fundamental part of the Constitution of this free, 
enlightened, and Christian Republic. 

The difference between the free and slave States is seen by the 
traveller when he passes the line of division, in the comparative 
prosperity of both town and country, as distinctly as the colors 
mark them on the map ; in none more decisively than between 
Pennsylvania and Maryland, The former cut out the cancer, 



40 HOCHELAGiy; OR, 



and. iinmediately the wound heriod, and the body became robust 
and vinforous ; the latter seve ul tinnes nearly made up her mind 
to the jipera )un, but courag'j failed, and the disease still continues 
working in decker root«?, while the patient sinks in a rapid decay. 
In Maryland the cmnate does not even afford the unrighteous and 
narrow-minded excuses of expediency or interest for the continu- 
ance of slavery. It is known and acknowledged that free labor 
is there more profitable ; but then the deadly rice swamps and 
sugar mills of Louisiana are capital consumers of their superflu- 
ous negro stock-raising ; it pays tolerably well, and they are 
unwilling to divert their capital into new and untried channels. 

In the older northern slave States, the condition of the negroes 
is often very comfortable when they are employed as domestic 
servants and farm laborers to amiable and educated people ; but 
the fate of those who are sold to the outlawed villains of Missis- 
sippi and Texas is beyond belief. The subject of slavery is one 
in which I take a deep interest, and I am fain to dwell a little 
upon it, taking Maryland as my illustration ; first, because it is 
the State where there is the greatest feeling for, and probability 
of abolition ; secondly, because it is the only one of the southern 
States which I have visited, and of which I know anything from 
personal observation. 

The population of Maryland is four hundred and fifty thou- 
sand ; of these, one hundred and fifty thousand are blacks, ninety 
thousand being slaves, the remainder free. >Since the year 1790, 
the white population of the principal slave-holding counties has 
diminished two-sevenths. In the greater number of them, the 
slaves at the present time are more numerous than the whites. 
There is a great extent of surface, once tilled, now gone to waste. 
The land is held in farms of large size ; when it ceased to be 
abundantly productive, the clumsy and wasteful process of slave- 
labor could be no longer applied to it. Tobacco is the only pro- 
duction of this State which ever seems lo require slave labor ; 
but in Ohio it can be raised by free labor to undersell the Mary- 
land growers. 

The abolition of slavery tends to divide properties into small 
farms ; this process would in a few years double the value of the 
crops and consequently of the land. In the course of time the 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 41 



soil of this State subject to slave labor will be quite exhausted by- 
its pernicious influences ; manufacturing, or improved agricul- 
ture must then be the resource. Moreover, slave labor here can 
no longer bear competition with that on the rich lands of the 
southern part of the valley of the Mississippi. The effect of this 
institution is fatal to the energies of the white population : they 
become accustomed to consider labor as servile ; all pursuits in 
which activity and industry are required are monopolized by men 
from the northern States, who enrich themselves speedily in this 
undivided field. 

The southern States become poorer every day, while the 
northern are rapidly made rich. I do not mean to say that the 
present inhabitants of the south become poorer, but that the 
country does ; the vitality — the soil itself, is exported in the cot- 
ton, sugar, and rice, to the north, and abroad, where it is con- 
sumed. Payment is received in all the handy-work of man, 
especially in the machinery used for the very purpose of more 
speedily drawing out — and of course exhausting — the wealth of 
the ground — their only capital. 

The barren hills of New England produce little m.ore than the 
industry and indomitable energy of their people : there, the more 
the land is worked, the more rich and grateful is the return. 
But the pestilential hot-beds of the south, though thin, rank vege- 
tation be luxuriant under the unnatural forcing of slave labor, must 
find a limit to their productive power. Then will the undrained 
morasses exhale their noisome breath, and the deadly fever 
finish the work, begun in crime, pursued to poverty and ruin. 

To do the intelligence of the planters justice, few or none of 
them pretend to be blind to the evils of slavery, as it regards their 
own material interests. But, as a part of the social system, as a 
degraded condition of a portion of their fellow-countrymen, they 
will defend it to the uttermost. I have heard it argued by the 
hour, on those very rare occasions when the subject can be ar- 
gued. St. Paul is referred to thus, '' He has given precepts for 
slavery, and thus recognized it as one of the various forms of 
social organization, bearing with it its peculiar duties and obliga- 
tions. Let us reverently acknowledge the overruling power of 
Providence, by whose disposition an unrighteous traffic has been 



42 HOCHELAGA; OR, 



made the means of benefit to a benighted race. Through the 
ordeal of servitude in the United States, the negro has passed 
over the threshold of civilisation into the portals of Christianity." 

This is indeed unanswerable ! Contempt and disgust for its 
foul falsehood and hypocrisy deprive you of the power to speak. 
Heaven save the wretched negroes from the sort of Christianity 
into whose portals they have passed ! They do not feel its benefit 
in religious instruction, for teaching them to read their Bible is 
punished as a felony. They do not feel it in the sacredness of 
their domestic ties, for the public sale violates them every day. 
They do not feel it in the wholesome principle of morality, for 
they may be at any time the helpless victims of its grossest out- 
rages. 

I can give but these few from the long catalogue of evils in- 
flicted by slavery on the interests of both the oppressors and the 
oppressed. In 1831, the people of Maryland became so convinced 
of the injury done to their material prosperity by this institution, 
that they came to a sort of compromise between the emancipative 
and the slaveholding principles, as a first step towards getting rid 
of the evil. Through jealousy of the perhaps injudicious in- 
terference of the northern abolitionists, this tendency to better 
things received a check. However, four thousand pounds was 
voted ann-ually by the Legislature for twenty years, to colonize 
with free negroes, going by their own consent, a district on the 
western coast of Africa. As far as the means extended, this plan 
has been carried on with prudence, energy, and success. The 
colony, called Cape Palmas, begun with forty emigrants, now 
numbers a population of seven hundred. It is of course orga- 
nized as a republic ; Governor Russwurm, a negro, is placed at 
the head of it by the Board of Directors ; the other officials of 
the little State are elected by the people or appointed by the Exe- 
cutive. There are houses of worship, courts of justice, schools, 
militia, officers of police ; roads have been opened with the inte- 
rior, and a trade is carried on in the productions of the country. 
To show that they have a dutiful wish to imitate their Transat- 
lantic mother, they have already annexed a considerable and 
important territory ; but the imitation cannot be said to be perfect, 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 43 

for they obtained their extension by honest purchase, and not by 
an astute and shameless spoliation of a weaker neighbor. 

This colony from Maryland is perhaps the most successful of 
any of the American settlements on the African coast. An ex- 
pedition sails from Baltimore every year for Cape Palmas, but as, 
in fourteen years, only seven hundred of the colored population 
of the State have been disposed of, the speedy absorption of the 
one hundred and sixty thousand still remaining is not very hope- 
ful. 

It has long been apparent that, in case of emancipation, the 
difficulty of having fully one-third of the population of the State 
of an inferior caste, unprotected by the bonds of interest, cannot 
be avoided. Then let it be boldly met ; in this land of equality, 
give them the citizen's right to vote ; then they will have the 
power at least to make terms with the dominant party ; they will 
remain no longer excluded by law from any appointments they 
may prove capable of filling. Surely these will be of the 
humblest sort ; for the white man cannot dread their competition 
in any other. Already, nearly half of the black population has 
become free, and the inconveniences have proved by no means so 
monstrous as the alarmists predicted, although the mixture of 
slaves and free blacks is a greater complication of the difficulty. 
Even in Jamaica, the dawn of better things is apparent, where, 
for years, the American slave-holder had pointed with triumph at 
the embarrassments — although there caused by an infinitely more 
disproportionate population of free blacks to whites, than any of 
their States could present. 

To the interests of the south, the result of slavery is certain 
ultimate decay ; the result of emancipation at least an uncertain 
evil. If in the scale be placed every doctrine of Christianity, 
every honest impulse of the human heart, every principle of 
eternal justice, the balance is decisively cast in any mind but that 
of a dealer in human flesh. 

To any English people who may look over these pages, the 
joining of my weak voice to the loud outcry from all the Chris- 
tian world for the freedom of their fellow-man, even though his 
face be dark, is of course not of the slightest use, as — thank God 
— it will not through their startled ear fall on a guilty conscience. 



41 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



But I know that every Englishman who attempts a sketch of 
America, however feeble his powers, or however humble his pre- 
tensions, is read by some of the people whose country he 
describes. I have therefore given these remarks that they may 
see that I am not an exception — that every son of our own free 
land agrees in the denunciation of this stain upon humanity, and 
in earnest prayer that it may soon be blotted out for ever. 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 45 



CHAPTER IV. 

Baltimore — Washington 

Baltimore, during the war, had an immense trade as long as the 
Americans remained neutral ; but, when England was found to 
be struggling against enormous odds, the opportunity to wound 
her was too tempting. At this critical moment the virtuous and 
patriotic indignation against her inordinate pretensions suddenly 
became uncontrollable ; the wrongs borne patiently, if not un- 
complainingly, for years, were to be no longer endured, and the 
United States threw their whole weight into the scale of the ap- 
parently winning side. When, however, the stubborn will of 
England was worked out in Europe, and her inveterate and ter- 
rible enemy subdued and in captivity, the warlike storm from the 
west subsided into a peaceful zephyr, and the " inordinate preten- 
sions" and the " wrongs of many years" were left just as they 
were before. 

But this unfurling of the " stars and stripes" had a very great 
effect upon Baltimore, though so little upon the international 
questions : its trade all but ceased, it passed into other channels, 
and even now requires all the matchless energy and enterprise of 
Americans to regain it. 

The Roman Catholic Cathedral is a large and imposing build- 
ing. Most of the old families of that faith, the descendants of the 
original settlers, have gone elsewhere or merged in the popula- 
tion ; the present congregation is principally of Irish and other 
foreigners. The portion of the town inhabited by the wealthy 
classes has a more solid and lasting appearance than in the other 
Atlantic cities ; the private houses are very good, but the crop of 
grass in some of the streets gives them a dreary look. The 
Washington column is one of the best specimens of that kind of 
building I have ever seen ; it is one hundred and sixty feet high, 



46 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



of excellent proportions throughout, the material a fine white 
marble. A large statue stands on the summit. The situation is 
very well chosen, even from the base of the pillar there is a com- 
manding and magnificent view. A few printed words on a board 
hung on the railing entreat that this monument may not be spat 
upon or otherwise injured : in spite of this appeal for respect 
to the memorial of their greatest hero, it is defiled in a sickening 
manner. 

Near the hotel where I stayed, is a monument to immortalize 
those who fell during the defence of the town in the last war, in 
the attack of Bladensburgh when General Ross was killed. The 
scene of this skirmish lies a few miles from the city, on the banks 
of the Patapsco. On the morning of this event, two boys, the 
elder not more than sixteen years of age, took muskets in their 
hands, and walked off* towards the British advance, declaring 
their intention to " shoot some Britishers." They concealed 
themselves behind a hedge by the way-side for some time. Un- 
fortunately, General Ross and his staff* happened to pass by this 
road, and the youngsters had the cleverness to distinguish him ; 
both fired, and both shots took eff*ect. This circumstance caused 
the failure of the attack. 

The Americans speak of great atrocities having been perpe- 
trated by the English soldiery in these expeditions : our accounts 
give these assertions a positive denial. I have no great opinion 
of the tenderness of an invading army, even consistingof our own 
countrymen ; but, at the same time, judging from the degree of 
exaggeration in American descriptions respecting which we have 
satisfactory testimony, it is evident that they never lose an oppor- 
tunity of holding up the British army to execration ; for instance, 
the stupid and mischievous assertion echoed and re-echoed by 
their press, that the watchword given by the English General at 
the attack on New Orleans was "Beauty and Booty." I put no 
faith in the unusual cruelties attributed to our countrymen at 
Baltimore. It is much to be lamented that the talented and 
erudite author of the magnificent " History of the French Revo- 
lution" should have preferred American to English testimony on 
the subject of the atrocious watchword now referred to. 

I had the good fortune, through the kindness of one of the offi- 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 47 

cers, to see the evolutions of a troop, or as they designate it, a 
company of horse-artillery, on the drill ground near Fort Mac- 
Henry, a few miles from the city. It was said to be the best 
troop in the army, modelled in a great measure on the Engl'ish 
system. The materiel, the harness, and carriages, were decided- 
ly inferior to their professed examples, and in some respects quite 
different, such as the use of the exploded system of the pole in- 
stead of shafts. Their brass guns were polished so brightly that 
they were painful to look at in the sunshine, and impossible to be 
laid correctly ; they would afford a charmingly conspicuous 
mark for the shot of their opponents. By their equipment, only 
four men were available for the working of the piece, a number 
quite insufficient, and they were neither active nor soldier-like ; 
the uniform is much like that of the French artillery. The 
horses were good, but too light for this service. The drill was 
slower and more complicated than the English. In either ap- 
pearance or evolutions it would be unjust to compare with them 
the horse-artillery or batteries of Woolwich. The officers were 
very well informed, gentlemanly men, zealous and efficient in 
their profession. I have said this generally, I believe, half-a- 
dozen times before, but I cannot repeat it too often. They have 
especial difficulties to contend with in this service : by the time a 
soldier becomes competent for its numerous duties, he gets his 
discharge or deserts ; they have no settled or general system of 
equipments ; indeed all they now have may be said to be experi- 
mental. In spite of these drawbacks, I should pronounce them, 
in my humble opinion, to be efficient and fit for immediate ser- 
vice. 

The fort is well situated to command the entrance of the har- 
bor, but its means of offence or defence are not very formidable. 
When I saw it, a number of workmen were employed in 
strengthening it, under a very skilful and intelligent engineer 
officer. Several of the minor arrangements were ingenious, 
though somewhat unfinished ; with them, indeed, they had the 
merit of invention, but in Europe they have been long used in a 
more perfected form. This invention of things long known else- 
where is by no means confined, in the United States, to the mili- 
tary equipments of Fort MacHenry. 



48 HOCHELAGA, OR, 



I went to the Museum, where there is a very fine and complete 
skeleton of the Mastadon, found, I think, near the Ohio. There 
was nothing else particularly worthy of attention ; so I went up 
stairs to the top of the building, where there is a theatre ; a per- 
formance was going on quite as good as could be expected. A. 
man near me put his feet upon the rail of the seat before him, and 
stretched himself out till his head was as low as was consistent 
with staring at the stage between his upraised legs. The sove- 
reign people seemed to disapprove of this graceful position, and a 
cry of " Trollope, Trollope," had at length the effect of influencing 
him to restore his head and heels to their usual relative altitudes. 
I have been told by very good authority that the satirical works 
of English writers have liad a decidedly beneficial effect upon the 
habits and manners of the Americans ; within the last ten years 
the improvement is perceptible to the most careless observer. If 
this be true, the state of things formerly in some of the public 
conveyances, and the smaller inns, must have been such as to 
palliate any amount of sarcastic bitterness. Even now, I defy 
any one to exaggerate the horrors of chewing and its odious con- 
sequences ; the shameless selfishness which seizes on a dish and 
appropriates the best part of the contents, if the plate cannot con- 
tain the whole ; and the sullen silence at meal times. But it is 
only fair to say, that the most eminent heroes of these perform- 
ances belong to a class of people with whom the traveller in Eng- 
land is not brought into contact at all : indeed, I believe that 
there, such a class — in manners, at least — has no existence ; I 
have never met with such, though thrown at different times among 
men in great extremes of social position. 

The Trollope question being satisfactorily settled, I tore myself 
away from the pleasures of the stage, to read the newspapers at 
the bar of the hotel. This was a fortunate step for me — an earnest 
observer of the peculiarities of human nature; for there I saw 
collected four more perfect specimens of the ruffian than I had 
ever hoped or feared to meet with in the course of my pilgrim- 
age. I should have thought them, from their appearance, the 
most villanous and offensive things I had ever encountered, had I 
not heard them speak ; their language outdid their looks — filthy, 
blasphemous, ferocious, deepening in abomination as they drenched 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 49 

themselves with liquor. The bar-keeper — who was addressed as 
" Doctor" — to do him justice, seemed thoroughly disgusted with 
them, and relieved when they were gone. 

The custom of carrying the bowie-knife is universal in these 
southern States ; even boys at school are not exceptions, and they 
not unfrequently have been known to use it for the settlement of 
their disputes. Education is far from being so general or so well 
conducted here as in New England, and is diminishing in many 
places as the population increases. The growth of ignorance is 
always followed by a corresponding strengthening of democratic 
feeling ; in this statement I quote the speech in Congress of a 
Loco-Foco member, as reported in all the papers. He also 
boasted of having patriotically used his- influence to encourage 
more domestic habits in the schoolmaster in his neighborhood. 

I conclude that Baltimore is not remarkable for the security 
of property, from one or two circumstances which fell under my 
own observation. I was advised not to leave my hat in the hall 
one evening while paying a very pleasant visit to an agreeable 
household ; the weather was extremely warm, and all the doors and 
windows were open, and they seemed to think this possible oppor- 
tunity of stealing my hat would be certainly taken advantage of. 
In the hotel, an excellent one by-the-bye, there was a printed no- 
tice, earnestly requesting guests to keep their doors bolted at 
night, as frequent robberies had occurred from the omission of 
this necessary precaution. Here it is only necessary for the 
safety of your property ; further south it is equally so for the 
safety of your life. 

From the specimens I saw of the lower classes of the slave 
States, and the information which I obtained about them, I consi- 
der them to be, to a frightful extent, rude, demoralized, and fero- 
cious ; some of the gentry appear only to the greater advantage by 
the force of the strong contrast in which they are placed with 
the masses of their countrymen. 

In travelling by railway in America, there is an excellent 
arrangement about baggage, which might, I should think, be ver^ 
advantageously adopted in England : for every separate article 
you receive a small plate of tin with a number stamped upon it ; 
a duplicate of this is tied on the luggage at the same time. 

PART H. 4 



HOCHELAGA; OR, 



When you arrive at your destination you deliver your number to 
the porter at the hotel, who gets the articles from the clerk at the 
Railway Station by producing it. So, from the time you part 
with your baggage on entering the railway, you see no more of it 
till lodged safely in the bed-room allotted to you. 

Nothing particular occurred in my journey to Washington, 
except that I had a good deal of conversation with a very singu- 
lar man, a Polish homoeopathic doctor ; he worked himself up at 
last into such a state of excitement, in speaking of his country's 
wrongs, that he made it quite a personal affair with me that Eng- 
land had not interfered to prevent its partition, though 1 positively 
disclaimed having been a foreign minister at the time it took 
place. 

Washington is so well described in the epithet of " The city 
of magnificent distances" that it is scarcely possible to add any- 
thing to convey a clearer idea. It is indeed a rich architectural 
joke — a boasting, straggling, raw, uncomfortable failure, of infinite 
pretension in the plan, wretched and imperfect in the execution. 
The situation is very fme, that is, the situation of the capitol — 
the city is everywhere. Hotels, lodging-houses, the dwellings 
of the official people, the public offices, dockyard and arsenal, 
scattered about at the most ludicrously-inconvenient distances, on 
muddy, back-settlement looking roads of enormous width, are the 
component parts of this inflated absurdity. 

I admired the capitol very much. My ignorance of architec- 
tural science, 1 suppose, blinded me to the faults of which it is so 
freely accused. Two statues by Persico have been lately placed 
on the left hand as you enter — one, of Columbus holding the globe 
in his hand (the character of his position and face I could not 
quite understand) ; the other, an Indian woman, stooping forward 
to look up to him, struck me as very beautiful ; -an expression of 
vague terror and yet admiration is given to her face with exqui- 
site art. It is said that some ladies do not quite approve of the 
arrangement or quantity of her draperies. 

At a little distance from the capitol is the gigantic statue of 
Washington, by Greenhow. The sitting attitude appeared to 
me stiff and undignified, but the head is the redeeming point. 
The figure is covered in by a wooden building, to guard it from 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 51 



the weather and from being injured ; the latter object has totally 
and disgustingly failed. Among the minor outrages was the 
name of " John H. Brown," written in large letters on the upper 
lip, so as to look like moustaches ; it must have required some 
active exertion to get up there for the purpose of putting on this 
ornament. 

The interior of the Capitol is judiciously arranged : both the 
Hall of the Senate and the House of Representatives are hand- 
some, and of the most convenient form. The entrance hall 
of the building is circular, of a fine height and proportion ; some 
historical paintings ornament, or disfigure it, accoi'ding to the taste 
of the observer. 

I went to the top of the building • as the thermometer was at 
ninety-four degrees in the shade, it may be imagined to have been 
tolerably, or rather intolerably, hot on the roof. The view was 
splendid, but I was not prepared to suffer so very painful a death 
as being roasted alive for the sake of seeing more of it ; one glance 
round was all I could afford. I then jolted off to the dock-yard 
and arsenal ; both are on a very small scale, and not remark- 
able in any way but for the kindness and courtesy of the officers 
who are good enough to show them. The post-o'ffice is a hand- 
some edifice of white marble, and the patent-office is well worth 
seeing, being filled with models of all inventions by Americans ; 
many of these are very ingenious and useful, others only com- 
plicated means of performing the simplest possible operations. 
The electric telegraph between Washington and Baltimore, soon, 
I understand, to be continued to Boston, is very simply and cle- 
verly arranged ; the mode of conversation is much more easy and 
rapid than that in London, which I have since visited, and only 
one wire of communication is made use of The public offices 
are convenient, plain in appearance, and with but little bustle ob- 
servable in them. 

There was no public reception during my very short stay, but 
I had the honor of being presented to the President. At eleven 
in the forenoon we arrived at the White House, under the shade 
of our umbrellas ; from the intense heat, a fire-king alone could 
have dispensed with this protection. It is a handsome building, 
of about the same size and pretensions as the Lord Lieutenant's 



52 HOCHELAGA; OR, 



residence in the Phoenix Park, in Dublin ; but much as I had 
heard of the republican simplicity of the arrangements, 1 was 
not prepared to find it what it was. We entered without ringing 
at the door ; my kind guide, leading the way, passed through the 
lower premises and ascended the staircase, at the top of which 
we saw a negro dressed very plainly, in clothes of the same color 
as his face. He grinned at us for a moment, and calculating 
from the respectability of my companion that I did not mean to 
steal anything, was walking off, till he saw me with a simple 
confidence, which seemed to him too amiable to be allowed to 
suffer a betrayal, place my umbrella in a corner before entering 
the gallery leading to the private apartments: he immediately 
turned to correct my error, informing me that if I had any fur- 
ther occasion for its services, I had better not leave it there, "for 
some one would be sure to walk into it." I of course took his 
counsel and my property, and proceeded till we arrived at the 
door of the President's room. My guide knocked, and the voice 
of the ruler of millions said, " Come in." Before obeying this 
command, I of course left my unfortunate umbrella outside ; this 
done, I walked into the presence and was introduced. At the 
same moment the watchful negro, the guardian spirit of my en- 
dangered property, thrust it into my left hand with another and 
stronger admonition to my simplicity ; but this time his tone of 
compassion for my ignorance had degenerated into that of almost 
contempt for my obstinate folly. In the meantime, my right 
hand was kindly shaken by the President, according to custom ; 
he told me to be seated, and conversed with much urbanity. I 
of course trespassed on his valuable time but for a few minutes, 
and then departed. 

He was sitting at a round table covered with papers ; another 
gentleman, I presume a secretary, was seated at a desk near the 
window, writing. Mr. Polk is a remarkable looking man ; his 
forehead massive and prominent, his features marked and of good 
outline. The face was shaved quite close, the hair short, erect, 
and rather grey. Judging from his dress and general appearance, 
he might have been either a lawyer or a dissenting minister ; his 
manner and mode of expression were not incongruous with his 
appearance. Although a few years ago his name was unknown, 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 53 

every one is now aware that Mr. James Polk was a lawyer in 
the State of Tennessee, holding a respectable but by no means a 
commanding position. At the eleventh hour of the last presiden- 
tial election, the democratic party, fearful of further delay, 
agreed to support him as a man not sufficiently conspicuous to 
have made himself obnoxious to any of their sectional prejudices; 
and, by a small majority, they succeeded in placing him at the 
head of affairs. 

Although the Whig party were at first highly indignant at so 
comparatively obscure a person being made the instrument of 
their defeat, they have submitted with a good grace to the exer- 
cise of the presidential authority, and are now in general not 
unfavorably disposed to the individual possessing it. Most of 
the offices under government, down to the very lowest, to the 
number it is said of more than sixty thousand, changed hands on 
this occasion, as the punishment or reward of political opposition 
or support. 

It is by no means a matter of surprise to me that the framers 
of the American Constitution should have been so jealous of the 
presidential authority. The patronage is now becoming enor- 
mous ; the immense quantities of offices to be given away is far 
more important than their value, in a community where the be- 
stowal of political power depends on numbers. As long as the 
executive acts in accordance with the general party views of its 
constituency, it enjoys, in particular instances, the possession of 
almost despotic power. Politically, the President is the mere 
organ of the masses, the mouthpiece to express their passions and 
prejudices, not the strong arm to repress their excesses. The 
effect of this on their domestic affairs is their own look-out, but 
the inaugural address and the " message " of the present Presi- 
dent are specimens of its pernicious influence on their foreign 
relations. The poor apology, that these threatening and high- 
sounding manifestoes are only meant as political capital, to tell on 
the minds of the grasping and turbulent population of the West, 
is but little consolation to the fund-holder or the merchant, whose 
property is damaged by the alarm which they excite. By de- 
grees, the people of Europe are beginning to set the proper value 



54 HOCHELAGA; OR, 



upon them ; from causing uneasiness, the next step will be to 
cause contempt. 

As for the bombastic absurdities and virulent attacks upon the 
governments of the old world, upon that of England especially, 
that now disgrace the House of Representniives, and even the 
Senate — their mischief is incalculable. They have been the 
cause of changing a simple matter of right, and diplomatic ar- 
rangement, into a question of national pride, and placing at the 
council-board the passions of the people instead of the wisdom 
of their rulers. 

After the States of America had succeeded in throwing off the 
rule of England, it became obviously necessary to establish one 
of their own instead. In 1787, all the States excepting Rhode 
Island, sent delegates to Philadelphia for the purpose. After two 
years' consideration, and reference to the different districts con- 
cerned, the Constitution was declared and put in operation. The 
powers of government were placed in the hands of three authori- 
ties, the President, the Senate, and the House of Representatives, 
each of these being directly and frequently subjected to the or- 
deal of election, and all emanating from the same source, being 
neither more nor less than different mouths- to express the popular 
will. On this subject Mr. Biddle says, " The tendency and dan- 
ger of other governments is subservience to Courts ; that of ours 
is submission to popular excitement, which statesmen should often 
rather repress than obey. Undoubtedly the public councils 
should reflect the public sentiments ; but that mirror may be 
dimmed by being too closely breathed upon, nor can all the other 
qualities of a public man ever supply the want of personal inde- 
pendence ; it is that fatal want that renders so many ostensible 
leaders only followers, which makes so many who might have 
been statesmen degenerate into politicians, and tends to people 
the country with the slaves or the victims of that mysterious fas- 
cination, the love of popularity." 

The President, is elected for the term of four years, by the 
majority of all the male naturalized inhabitants of the United 
States. He commands the naval and military force of the coun- 
try ; he nominates all officers of the Federal Government who 
are not elected by the Senate, but subject to their appointments 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 55 



being annulled by it ; he has the power of making treaties, but 
requiring the ratification of the Senate ; he may grant pardons 
for all offences but treason, and can place his veto on the acts of 
the other two Estates ; if, however, an act be returned by two- 
thirds of the Elective Houses, he can no longer forbid its passing. 
A Secretary of State, and Secretaries of the Treasury, of War, 
and of Naval Affairs, assist him. These are not, however, al- 
lowed to have a place in either House of Congress. 

The Senators are elected by the members of the legislature of 
the different States, two from each, whether large or small ; they 
are chosen for six years, one third going out every two years. 
Each member must be thirty years of age, nine years a natural- 
ized citizen of the United States, and a resident of the State 
which he represents. From this body committees are formed 
for foreign affairs, &;c., which perform a large portion of execu- 
tive duties confided in other countries to the Secretaries of State. 

The House of Representatives is elected every tv/o years, on 
the basis of population, by universal suffrage in most of the States, 
at the rate of not more than one member for thirty thousand in- 
habitants ; none can be elected under twenty-five years of age, 
or who is not a i-esident of the State where he is chosen. The 
owners of slaves are allowed to vote for them at the rate of three 
to five for the number in their possession, besides voting in their 
individual capacity. Each member must have been at least seven 
years naturalized. 

All legislation and taxation must be approved of by these three 
authorities ; in the Senate and the House of Representatives, the 
majority being the will of the body ; but for any change in the 
Constitution two thirds of each must consent. 

From these few statements it will be seen that all power, Ex- 
ecutive and Legislative, not only emanates, but is held almost 
directly from the hands of the majority of the people. As far 
as external relations are concerned, their control is absolute over 
the minority, no matter how strong that minority may be in virtue, 
wealth, and numbers. At this present time it is the inclination, 
and, perhaps, the apparent interest of the Western States to go to 
war with England ; in the older and better districts of the At- 
lantic coast, the inclination and the interest are to remain at peace. 



f)6 HOCHELAGA; OK, 



The former party may prove more numerous ; war may be brought 
on ; and the latter have to suffer the loss of its trade, and proba- 
ble injuries from the enemy, in a contest to which they have been 
throughout opposed ; while the Central States, heedless of the 
sufferings of which they can feel no share, look forward to the 
conquest of valuable neighboring territories as the reward of 
their efforts. 

In carrying out this Constitution, two great principles have 
been acted upon by two different parties — Conservative and De- 
mocratic. In Washington was embodied one, in Jefferson the 
other. Washington stands among Americans " first in peace, 
first in war, and first in the hearts of his countrymen." Jeffer- 
son was his treacherous enemy. Jefferson disclaimed alike re- 
verence for the past and regard for the future : the attainment 
of present advantage was the sole object of his school of policy ; 
to the means and the consequences he was equally indifferent. 

Of these two principles, the high-minded, the educated, and 
the wealthy adopted the former ; the unscrupulous, the ignorant, 
and the needy, the latter ; and to their hands, as the more nu- 
merous, has the working of the Constitution fallen. But there is 
such a weight of all that is good and sound in this great Anglo- 
Saxon Republic, that on several occasions it has returned for a 
season to the rule of this worthy minority ; the stream of Demo- 
cracy could, however, only be delayed ; now it has swept them 
quite away, and these men of character, talent, and wealth, are 
borne unwillingly and helplessly on the turbid waters. 

So the principles of Jefferson have triumphed over those of 
Washington. 

The results are unjust aggression, the dishonesty of whole 
States, the injury of social liberty, and the debasement of public 
men. One of America's most gifted sons, in his " Essay on He- 
roism," gives these words : — " Who that sees the meanness of 
our politics but only congratulates Washington that he is long 
already wrapped in his shroud, and for ever safe ; that he was 
laid sweet in his grave, the hope of humanity not yet subjugated 
in him?" 

There is only one court in which the Judges are not subject to 
the perpetual action of the popular will : the Supreme Court of 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 57 

the United States is independent, none other. By this elective 
arrangement they have attained as near an approach to the sys- 
tem of Judge Lynch as could be decently managed. The man 
to whom the power of life and death is entrusted, is often a very 
inferior lawyer : no successful one would be contented to take 
the niggardly salary of the office instead of his practice. The 
Judge will, most likely, be dependent on his re-election for his 
bread. In Mississippi or Arkansas, the people have far too lively 
a regard for their liberties to elect a man to the judicial chair 
who would throw obstacles in the way of the free use of their 
beloved bowie knife. Even in the enlightened Philadelphia and 
Boston, we have seen the attempt to punish popular rioters end in 
a failure and a farce. In this strange community, the very class 
of people who most need the revStraints of civil and religious law, 
choose and pay the ministers, and can discard them when they 
cease to be complaisant. 

In the machinery of the Constitutions of the different States 
there is great variety, but in the principle none ; " the people are 
the source of all legitimate power;" numbers are represented, 
not property — stake in the country, intellectual power, character, 
confer not a feather weight of political strength on their posses- 
sors. Many of these do not vote at all ; it is well known that in 
some districts not half the number, of the inhabitants exercise 
their franchise ; the hustings are crowded with the idle, the ra- 
pacious, and the interested. Their choice often falls upon the 
schemhig, briefless lawyer, who, without talent or industry enough 
for his profession, is gifted with the necessary degree of assurance, 
pliability, and cunning to persuade them, not that he has merit, 
but that he will be their readiest tool. In this creature their 
vanity as well as their power is concentrated ; and, unless he 
can by his turbulence and verbosity consume the share of the 
public time that their dignity requires to be given to them, he is 
ejected to make room for some more successful demagogue. 
4* 



HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



CHAPTER V. 

Boston. 

My time being very limited, I was obliged to return by Baltimore 
and Philadelphia, that being by far the shortest and easiest route. 
I found New York as hot and busy as when I left it, and highly 
excited by the first arrival of the Great Britain steam-ship from 
England. Thousands of people assembled to see her enter the 
harbor ; they seemed generally disappointed in her apparent size, 
but much struck by the beauty of her model. They were unani- 
mous in their indignation at being obliged to pay for going on 
board, and when they saw her decked with the flags of all the 
nations of the earth, except that of America, the state of public 
feeling became quite alarming ; and the papers of the day con- 
tained tremendous articles on the supposed insult. It turned out 
that, by way of the greatest compliment, the English and Ameri- 
can flags had been joined together in the most affectionate manner, 
and had proved such a curious mixture that no one was able to 
make out what it meant. There had been a good deal of betting 
as to the length of time she would take in her first passage ; 
some were so near in their " guess " that the difference between 
Liverpool and New York clocks raised points to be decided by 
"Bell's Life." 

There was great eagerness for English news ; all the names 
and actions of our public men seem quite as familiar to the 
Americans generally as to ourselves — the state of the markets 
much more so. They have a profound respect for the English 
press, indeed the leading article of the " Times" they seem to 
think the undoubted exponent of the feelings of the wealthy 
classes in England. The power and severity with which that 
magnificent paper treats sometimes on Transatlantic aflJairs, 
though it exasperates them, has a decided influence on their 
opinions. The extraordinary ability and zeal displayed in attack- 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 59 

ing the Corn Laws is a certain passport to their approbation, and 
in some measure reconciles them to the offences against their na- 
tional vanity. 

In my short wanderings, I had opportunities of seeing a little 
of their navy : every one knows that their ships are excellent in 
their construction and performance ; those I saw were also highly 
creditable in the appearance of order and discipline on board. 
The number of ships in their navy list is seventy-six ; fifty-five 
of these, including six ships of the line, are available for service ; 
there are only two steam-vessels in commission. The ships are 
all, of their kind, of the very largest size ; some of their frigates 
are of as much tonnage as our old line-of-battle-ships. The num- 
ber of seamen employed is about six thousand ; one-sixth of these 
only are Americans, the remainder being nearly all English. 
Their pay is very high, from three pounds to three pounds ten, 
sterling, a month. The American navy is a most formidable 
force to the enemies of the country, as well as to its country's 
exchequer ; in proportion to its number the expense is far greater 
than that of any other power. 

The officers stand very high in public estimation ; the rank of 
Admiral is denied them by the absurd jealousy of their country- 
men, as, though popular demagogues may be militia generals by 
the score, they have not yet made their naval commands elective. 
The short history of this force is very brilliant and adorned by 
many gallant actions, by far the greater number of them having 
been performed against us. They always wisely worked N^'ith 
the choicest tools ; the size of their ships, the weight of metal, 
and the strength of the crews, were invariably greater than ours 
in their successes. In the contest of these two great branches of 
the Anglo-Saxon race both by sea and land, the circumstances of 
skill in the individual commanding, the strength and discipline 
of the force employed, or local advantages, have always been the 
causes of victory declaring for either party. As to the boast of 
superiority in national valor of either the one or the other, 
the bloody decks of the Java and the Chesapeake, and the inde- 
cisive carnage of Lundy's Lane, bear witness to its vanity. 

The American people are very justly proud of the achieve- 
ments of their navy, and treat it with far greater liberality than 



60 HOCHELAGA; OR, 



the other departments ; they also modestly refrain from interfer- 
ing with its arrangement and discipline ; in short, where it is 
concerned they can stand anything but Admirals. At both New 
York and Boston they have very fine line-of-battle ships for the 
commodore's flag — the North Carolina and the Ohio. I should 
think the patience of the officers must be often sorely tried by the 
number and nature of their visitors. There is a stout little squad- 
ron off the coast of Mexico, ready for any emergency that may 
occur in that quarter, should the unreasonable inhabitants resent 
having Texas taken off their hands by their liberty-loving brother 
republicans, or the probable gift of their inestimable institutions 
be rejected by the province of California. /..Now, these ignorant 
Mexicans have not yet received the undoubted fact — ^part of the 
education of all the rising generations of Americans-^that Provi- 
dence made the whole of this northern continent expressly for the 
United States, and that their continuing to hold any part of it, is 
nearly as preposterous as England, or any other European power 
continuing to do so. i 

Among the Americans, there is a very strong wish to enlighten 
this Mexican ignorance as soon as possible, and a pious zeal that 
the evident designs of Providence may be no longer delayed. 
This devotional feeling has manifested itself lately in several in- 
stances ; among the valuable members of society who forwarded 
the Divine views in the taking of Texas, and introducing slavery 
there (which the Mexicans had abolished), in the noble but un- 
successful deeds of the Canadian sympathizers, and above all in 
the high-minded statesmen, who contend for the lion's share of 
Oregon, uniting the virtues of a Yankee pedlar and a pettifog- 
ging attorney to the strength of their diplomatic skill. 

From New York to Boston, I proceeded by the Long-Island 
railway, and steam-boat, at an incredibly small expense, and 
with a party large in an inverse proportion. The quantity of 
luggage on these occasions is enormous, although many American 
gentlemen travel very light, the greatcoat pocket containing all 
the necessary assistance for the toilet ; those, however, who do 
use portmanteaus, use very large ones, generally of strong but 
light wood, bound round with straps of iron and ornamented with 
brass nails. The initials of the proprietor and those of his town 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 61 

and State are marked on them in immense letters, either in white 
paint or in these brass nails. There is usually, too, something 
very complicated in the locks. Altogether there is a peculiarly 
cautious and knowing look about an American portmanteau ; I 
could recognize it anywhere among thousands. 

In the number of my fellow-passengers there were neither old 
nor young, at least there were no venerable grey heads or cheer- 
ful boyish faces. In no part of the United States do the people 
seem to arrive at the average length of life of the Old World. 
The great and sudden changes of temperature, while, perhaps, 
they stimulate the energies of those who are exposed to them, 
wear out the stamina of the body and exhaust its vitality. The 
cares of manhood and the infirmities of second childhood are 
equally premature, denying the population the two loveliest but 
most dependent stages of existence, the idle but fresh and gene- 
rous morning of youth, the feeble but soft and soothing evening 
of old age. In this country, we find even the climate in league 
with the practical in its influences on the powers of man, a goad 
to material prosperity. The child is pushed with a forcing power 
into the duties and pursuits of maturer years ; the man, when he 
ceases to be of active use, is hurried out of the busy scene, his 
part played. The cumberers of the ground are but few, all 
work, none play. They go more awkwardly about their amuse- 
ments than any people I have ever seen elsewhere : theirs is a 
dark and sombre path through life, though every step were on 
gold. Sarcastic wit will win from them a sarcastic grin; the 
happy conclusion of some hard-driven bargain may raise a smile 
of satisfaction : but the joyful burst of cheerful laughter, the glee 
and hilarity of a happy heart, you must go elsewhere to seek. 
They are not a healthy-looking race ; the countenance is sallow, 
and marked early in life with lines of thought. The fresh, pure 
glow of the Saxon cheek is never seen here. The men are tall, 
but not robust or athletic ; they have no idea of the sports of the 
field, and rarely or never join in any more active game than 
bowls or billiards. They do not walk, if they can ride ; ride, if 
they can drive, or drive if they can go by railway. Mind and 
body, day and night, youth and age, are given up to the one great 
pursuit of gain. But this inordinate appetite for acquiring is in 



<fl HOCHELAGA; OR, 



their character deprived of some of its most odious features ; it 
is rarely accompanied by parsimony or want of charity. I be- 
lieve no people on earth can be more hospitable to their equals 
in worldly wealth, or more open-handed to the poor. Their es- 
tablishments for the relief of the distressed are almost unrivalled 
in liberality and excellence of arrangement, and many among 
them are as lavish in their expenditure, as they are energetic in 
possessing themselves of the means to supply it. 

That money should be the great stepping-stone to the considera- 
tion of their fellow men is both the cause and effect of this 
universal tendency. Of course the lower in the scale of rank 
and education you descend in your studies of character, the 
more openly and odiously is this trait developed ; you must go 
very high indeed before you cease to trace its influence. 

It is a painful consideration to any one whom the sense of 
truth obliges to make general remarks of this nature, not alto- 
gether favorable to the national character, that many of those 
whose kindness he has experienced may feel hurt, and be disposed 
to look upon them as evidences of ingratitude. I cannot however 
but hope that the effort, — though it may be unsuccessful — to 
present fairly both sides of the picture, may not be mistaken for 
a cause to give offence, or even for a want of full and grateful 
appreciation of the kind offices received. I look upon it as the 
duty of any Englishman to be unrestrained by any personal 
consideration from giving the full weight, but not an atom more, 
of the evil effects produced on the character and manners of a 
people by a system of government and education so totally 
different from that under which he has been brought up — that 
which his honest conviction and his experience assure him is the 
best yet devised by man's finite wisdom. 

If the words I have written should prove in the least degree 
offensive to any of those kind friends in America to whom I am so 
much indebted for disinterested and most agreeable hospitality, let 
them attribute their spirit to prejudice — ignorance — anything but 
want of gratitude and friendly feeling towards them. 

The distance from Newport to Boston is t^vo hundred and 
twenty miles of a most fatigumg journey, rushing from steamboat 
to railway, and railway to steamboat, crushing into the dining 



vAwitiNjiC 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 63 

saloon, disgusting dinner, wonderful alacrity in dispatching it by 
my fellow passengers, heat dreadful, smoke from the engines 
annoying — in short we arrived at Boston extremely tired and in 
a very ill humor. When we — I include two English officers 
whom I met and joined company with at New York — when we 
arrived at the Tremont House, we were informed that every bed 
in the establishment was engaged, except three in the same room. 
While we stood aghast at this intelligence, some other people 
came in to look for accommodation, saying they had tried several 
other hotels in vain. So we made the best of it and ordered our 
valuables up stairs, where we found that the three beds, for our- 
selves were in the same room with three more beds for other 
individuals, each couch being flanked by one of those American 
portmanteaus I have so particularly described, with the lock well 
secured, and no loose articles lying about. However, it was very 
late, and we had had quite enough locomotion for that day, so it 
ended in our remaining ; being further influenced by a promise 
to provide separate rooms for us the next day, which was faith- 
fully fulfilled ; I found this altogether the best hotel in which I 
had been in the States. We had one corner for our three beds, 
our luggage was piled up in a central situation, and, confident in 
numbers, we went to bed and slept. I was fortunate to awaken 
just as the American gentlemen came in, for it gave me an 
opportunity of seeing a dispatch in going to rest, rivalling that in 
the dinner department. From the time the door opened there 
appeared to be nothing but a hop, step, and jump into bed, and 
then a snore of the profoundest repose. Early in the morning, 
when these gentlemen awoke from their balmy slumbers, there 
was another hop, step, and jump out of the beds, and we saw no 
more of them. We found breakfast everything we could wish, 
the people of the house very kind and obliging, and comfortable 
rooms an hour or two afterwards. 

I found several of my Saratoga friends staying here : we had 
all been, travelling about in different directions, and had now 
arrived at the same point ; some of them were bound for England 
by the next mail steam-packets, as were my companions and 
myself. We had however left ourselves ample time for sight- 



64 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



seeing, sowing our letters of introduction, and reaping, as usual, 
an abundant crop of kindness and attention. 

The hotel is divided into a family and bachelor establishment; 
but, at meals, the lonely unblessed ones are allowed the privilege 
of joining the ladies if they are acquainted with any of them, or 
indeed if they feel inclined. There was a large drawing-room 
with a piano, and a gay circle was always to be found in it. The 
bar and the smoking room evidently offered much greater attrac- 
tions to most of the gentlemen ; the expenditure of cigars and 
saliva in these localities was enormous. The reading-room was 
a very good one, there were heaps of papers belonging to all 
parts of the States, from the " Bangor Whig" to the " New 
Orleans Picayune" and "Arkansas Democrat;" in a corner, 
from a pile in a frame, " The Times" hung out its broad and 
well-thumbed sheet. The wall was hung round with maps of 
the city, the States, and the United States, where the blue of the 
American territory always thrusts itself up into the red of the 
English to the farthest line of the different disputed points. At 
the top they were ornamented by some appropriate national 
designs, such as the American eagle carrying the globe in its 
talons, with one claw stuck well into Texas, and another reach- 
ing nearly to Mexico. While the noble bird's feet are thus 
profitably employed, his beak is not idle, for there he holds a 
staff, from which the flag of the " stars and stripes" floats over 
the prostrate world. 

Boston, the social and commercial capital of New England, is 
in trade and opulence inferior only to New York, among the 
cities of North America. The harbor is excellent, but beyond 
that, it possesses no great natural advantages ; the soil around is 
poor, and the country deficient in the mineral productions neces- 
sary for the uses of man. No navigable river opens the 
resources of distant districts ; on one side is the ocean, on the 
other the stern hills and ungenial climate of New England. But 
this unpromising territory was fixed on by a set of men of a 
courage, hardihood, and energy, capable of overcoming any 
danger or difficulty that presented itself. Their descendants 
have inherited these virtues, and by their exercise have changed 
this barren shore into a city of luxury and wealth. 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 



Boston was founded in 1620, about ten years after the landing 
of the pilgrim fathers. For half a century it made but little 
progress. When the colonies became independent it rapidly in- 
creased, like all the other Atlantic cities, for, from the Old 
World, especially from England, religious enthusiasts, adven- 
turers, disaffected men, and admirers of republican institutions 
flocked over in crowds to swell the population. Of late years 
Boston has been favored by particular commercial enactments, 
and has progressed more rapidly than ever. It is said to contain 
at this day one hundred and twenty thousand souls ; certain it is 
that building is going on to a prodigious extent. I have visited it 
at different intervals, and at each period the increase was plainly 
visible. 

The city stands upon a peninsula in Massachusetts Bay, 
marked by three bold hills ; from north to south three miles long, 
from east to west one third of the length, but of an indented and 
irregular outline. As the number of the inhabitants so rapidly 
increased, this piece of land became too small for their accom- 
modation, and they have spread themselves over the island and 
other parts near at hand, by bridges and ferries, keeping up still 
their intimate connection with the town on the Peninsula. Of 
the former there are six, of great length but no beauty ; the ma- 
terial of their structure is wood. Canal bridge, leading to East 
Cambridge, is the largest ; measuring nearly a thousand yards. 
In the old parts of the town the streets are narrow and incon- 
venient ; in the new they are wide and regular, with massive 
and comfortable dwellings, built chiefly of a bright red brick, 
with doors and blinds of lively colors ; many have also windows 
of purple glass, giving them altogether a cheerful but fantastic 
appearance. Everything in Boston is scrupulously clean, from 
the roof to the road not a speck or stain ; no one is allowed to 
enjoy the selfish indulgence of smoking in the streets, and chew, 
ing is not nearly so popular here as in the south. The harbor is 
excellent, easy of access to friends, difficult to foes ; when within 
its shelter there is ample space and safe anchorage for a great 
amount of shipping. Fort Independence, more formidable by 
nature than art, protects the narrow entrance of the channel, at 
point-blank range. The wharves are extensive and solid ; of 



66 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



late, great ranges of store-houses have been built close at hand, 
of commodious size and lasting materials ; these districts are 
scenes of constant and active industry. 

On the island opposite, in the harbor, is East Boston, only ten 
years old, but already in maturity ; the English Mail Steam- 
packet Company have their dock and stores there, and a steam 
ferry-boat crosses between this offshoot and the main city every five 
minutes. The State House of Massachusetts stands on the highest 
point of the Peninsula ; from the cupola on the dome at the top, 
you see the city and the surrounding country under you like a 
map, and get the best idea of its extent and position ; for, as long 
as you move about below from street to street, you are sadly 
puzzled among the numerous bridges and ferries. This dome is 
a copy of that of St. Paul's ; of this it is necessary to be in- 
formed, for the likeness is not very striking. ' You will probably 
also hear that the view from it is the finest on the earth ; this too 
it is essential that you should be made aware of by the authority 
of your guide, for without being told it might perhaps escape 
your observation that such vi^as the case. But, in truth, it is a 
very fine and interesting sight, whether it be the finest in the 
world or not. In an architectural point of view, the Custom 
House is the most remarkable edifice ; it is built of solid granite, 
rather heavy in its general effects. There are numerous churches 
for every variety of religious faith. One, called Kings' Chapel, 
was many years ago devoted by its founder to the Church of 
England ; the will declared that divine service should always be 
performed according to the Rubric, under penalty of the endow- 
ment being forfeited. In course of time the majority of the 
parishioners became Unitarians, and adopted the JefFersonian 
principle that the dead should not have any influence over the 
living ; there is, however, some law in Massachusetts independent 
of the popular feeling, and the congregation could not seize the 
funds without submittinij to the will. A sort of arrangement 
was therefore entered into by which the English Liturgy was 
still used, but carefully purged of anything alluding to the ob- 
jectionable Trinitarian doctrines. I once attended the service 
there without being aware of this extraordinary compromise, or 
without having heard the x^merican Church of England Liturgy 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 67 

anywhere else, and I certainly was sadly puzzled to know what 
had happened to it in this instance. A very clever sermon was 
preached afterwards, commencing with a profession of avoiding 
all doctrinal points, and of addressing tlie congregation on tlie 
broad basis of Christianity ; but the spirit of the preacher's faith 
breathed through every word he spoke. I understand that a great 
many worthy and amiable people joined in this arrangement for 
setting aside the dead man's will by a side-wind; indeed, 1 do 
not recollect having heard any one there speak of it wilh disap- 
probation. The Unitarians are very numerous and influential at 
Boston, and the clergymen of the highest repute. 

The Faneuil Hall is an interesting place ; it is called after its 
founder, who gave it to the citizens for public meetings. It is 
nearly a hundred feet square, and three stories high. In the 
centre story, which is the one more generally used, there is a 
desk and a row of seats for the principal speakers. When I saw 
it, this room was being fitted up with branches into a sort of 
honeycomb of bowers, where stalls for an abolition bazaar were 
to be placed the next day. Close by this building is the mag- 
nificent Faneuil Market, five hundred and thirty-six feet long, 
and fifty wide, much to be admired for the abundance and variety 
of good things to be purchased under its walls, as well as for the 
style of its structure. 

In my visit to this place I was fortunate enough to have for 
my companion a gentleman of great worth, and of the highest 
estimation among his fellow-citizens ; his head was grey, but the 
kindness of heart as warm and fresh as if he had been still in 
early youth : but lately returned from a visit to England, he had 
been confined by indisposition since his arrival ; as he walked 
through the market, several of the keepers of stalls to whom he 
was known, came out with evident pleasure to meet him, shaking 
hands with him in the most cordial manner, and expressing their 
joy at meeting him again. In spite of this familiar and ap- 
parently equal greeting, the respect they bore him was evidently 
shown, and as little to be misunderstood as if they had only doffed 
their caps to him. We had much conversation on this little scene 
afterwards, and he was gratified that a stranger had been witness 



68 HOCHELAGA; OR, 



to it, as in its way so characteristic of the manners of New 
England. 

One evening he was kind enough to take me to the meeting of 
a sort of club, held for the purposes of social intercourse every 
second Friday, at the house of one of the members. About a 
dozen gentlemen were present on this occasion, all of them past 
the noon of life, except the host, who was a very distinguished 
lawyer, well known elsewhere as well as in Boston ; one of the 
others held a high judicial situation. Some were leading mem- 
bers of the press, others medical men of the best standing, others 
connected with the manufacturing and commercial interests. 
Among the latter were two who had begun life before the mast, 
and by their own abilities and merit arrived at great wealth; 
both in manners and conversation they were exceedingly pleas- 
ing. One of them had traded for some years to the mouth of the 
Columbia River, and v^as well acquainted with the Oregon ter- 
ritory and its inhabitants, both aborigines and settlers. This 
gentleman has written one of the best pamphlets on the boundary 
question at present in dispute between England and the United 
States, that the universal interest on this subject has called forth : 
his views, as expressed in this pamphlet, as well as in conversa- 
tion, appear clear, sound and moderate ; he strongly advocates a 
peaceful arrangement of the difficulty, as did, indeed, all the 
company, but at the same time they expressed their fixed de- 
termination to support their countrymen in claiming a full and 
fair division. I was sorry to find that all seemed to agree that 
the free navigation of the Columbia River was a point not on any 
account to be conceded to England. 

I consider that the opinions of those highly intelligent and 
wealthy men, belonging to this most moderate portion of the 
Union — men, who, having their shipping on the seas at this mo- 
ment, would have the most to lose in a war — whose feelings 
towards England appeared of a friendly nature, and whose ideas 
were generally tolerant and sober — are to be taken as decidedly 
a most favorable specimen of American feeling on this particular 
point. But on several former proposals of settlement made to 
England, the free navigation of the Columbia was part of the 
offer ; and it is not for a moment to be supposed that any English 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 69 

ministry can accept another proposal in the style of the Sybil's 
books. The disagreeable deduction from all this is, that the mat- 
ter is one that requires the highest diplomatic skill, and very 
favorable circumstances, to carry it to a peaceful termination. 

At about ten o'clock we sat down to supper at a round table 
covered with all sorts of good cheer, and remained in very ani- 
mated and interesting conversation till midnight, when the party 
broke up. 

It is highly gratifying to an Englishman to find that in Ameri- 
ca — and particularly at Boston — where his introductions point 
him out as not undeserving of kindness, his country is at once a 
passport to the good offices of the people, and the higher they 
ascend in the social scale, the more strongly this is marked. At 
the same time they are exceedingly keen in their observation of 
manner and conversation ; I have no doubt they could at once 
detect, and treat accordingly, any one who might try to impose 
upon their sagacity, by representing himself to belong to a class 
of society in his own .country to which he had no pretensions. 

The Common is a park of about fifty acres, laid out with 
gravel walks, and ornamented with fine trees ; many of the 
houses of the wealthiest inhabitants range along one side of it ; 
both in health and beauty this space is a great advantage to the 
people of Boston. This city stands first in America for the num- 
ber and excellence of its public schools ; there are ninety — in- 
cluding a Latin grammar school, and a high school for mathema- 
tics and the more advanced branches of an English education. 
They are all sustained at the expense of the community, and cost 
about forty thousand pounds a year. It is singular that, although 
the opportunities of education are so much better in the great 
towns, even for the lowest classes, the inhabitants are not usually 
so successful in the pursuits of life as those of the country. I 
know several instances of country lads who had commenced by 
sweeping out an office of business, and afterwards by their skill 
and industry had become among the richest of the State, but this 
seldom happens with those " raised in the Cities." 

The Athenaeum contains one of the most valuable libraries in 
the States, between thirty and forty thousand volumes. Good 



70 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



private libraries are very rare ; if, indeed, they have any exist- 
ence. 

I went, of course, to see the monument on Bunker's Hill, and, 
in spite of the warning of the thermometer, climbed to the top of 
it ; the view is very fine, but not so good as that from the dome 
of the State House. I found several visitors at the top, looking 
out, two of a most singular class ; they were Texian frogs, large, 
toad-like-looking reptiles, squatted on the hot stone of the battle- 
ment, staring down with their beautiful bright eyes ; they were 
covered with thick scales, and spotted with black, their feet like 
those of aquatic birds. They belonged to a man almost as extra- 
ordinary-looking as themselves, who told us that he had just 
arrived from Texas, and was going back thither immediately ; 
that it was a delightful country, with no troublesome restrictions 
of laws. As soon as his strange pets had looked long enough on 
this scene sacred to liberty, he put them carefully in his bosom, 
for he said " they were very particular how they travelled." 

The column is two hundred and twenty feet high, and thirty 
feet square at the base ; the hill is merely a gentle inclination ; 
but, when defended with breastworks, it must have been a most 
formidable position. On the 17th of June, 1775, was fought the 
battle that has made it memorable, and Englishmen never showed 
more determined courage than on that day. They zvere all Eng- 
lishmen then, though ranged on adverse sides — for the Crown and 
the Colony. When Howe was at length successful at such tre- 
mendous cost, he had good reason to say with the old Cavalier, 
of the Puritan army, 

* * * * To give 
The rebel dogs their due. 

When the roaring shot 

Poured thick and hot 
They were stalwart men and true. 

It was a gallant fight, and the Americans may well be proud 
of it. 

Boston has made great and successful efforts to create the 
internal advantages of communication which nature has denied 
her. The Middlesex Canal, the oldest in the United States, joins 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 71 

to the Merrimack River, at Concord ; railroads branch out in all 
directions; by them the Hudson, and the canals and railways of 
New York open the line of travel to the far West. Lines of 
packets run regularly to all the principal sea-ports of the Atlan- 
tic. The shipping of Boston is second in quantity to that of New 
York only, and no inconsiderable part of the trade of other ports 
is carried on by it. The exports are very large — cotton and 
woollen manufactured goods to China and elsewhere ; tools and 
machines of all sorts for the southern States, and not least on the 
list, three or four million pair of shoes every year. Whatever 
skill or industry can supply is plentiful in New England ; the 
surplus finds its way elsewhere through the port of Boston. 
There is just the same evidence here of activity and prosperity 
as at New York, but not the same bustle and fuss ; everything is 
more orderly and steady. Even the dray-horses seem to partake 
of this character ; they are larger and fatter, more English-look- 
ing than any I have seen elsewhere. In hot weather, every 
horse, no matter what, his station in life may be, is provided with 
a netting to keep off the flies ; they all seem well fed and cared 
for. 



72 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



CHAPTER VI. 

Boston — Lowell — Plymouth Festival— Winter Journey to Canada. 

The beautiful cemetery of Mount Auburn is the sight best worth 
seeing- in Boston and its neighborhood. The grounds are exten- 
sive, containing a great variety of hill and dell, the miniature 
features of a picturesque country. It is but fifteen years old, 
and many of the tombs are still unoccupied. I think the impres- 
sion which the sight of this cemetery leaves on the mind is far 
more sad than that of Pere la Chaise, or any other place of inter- 
ment I have ever seen. Its duties have scarcely begun, but in a 
few years many among the troubled thousands we have just left 
will sleep in its shades ; their cold beds are ready for them, the 
inscriptions written for them, nothing is wanted but the date of 
their going to rest. As, in the course of time, the busy swarms 
of the neighboring city multiply and spread over her space, so - 
will the silent population of this dark rival swell and fill its limits. 
The new and thinly peopled cemetery seems to intrude its offers 
of ghastly hospitality upon the living, more than to guard the 
slumbers of its solemn household of the dead. 

Deep woods of many various trees clothe the undulating sur- 
face ; at this autumn time of the year the shades of their foliage 
are very rich and beautiful. No sounds disturb the echoes ; there 
are no birds, no noisy insects ; silence and the dead dwell there 
together. The tombs are in general Very unsuited to this lovely 
place : showy, obtrusive in their pretensions, very white and very 
new; the epitaphs speak to you more of earth than of heaven. 
There are no humble graves covered with the soft green turf; 
here the grass is tall, and rank, and withered. 

The neighborhood of Boston is very pretty ; there ar&Jfnah^ ^ ". 
neat villas, some on a handsome scale. The roads are godju th^ 
fences well kept ; you can easily fancy yourself in Engra«i,d^|t 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 73 

there is more of a rural appearance about it than any other place 
I have seen in America. It is quiet and tranquil-looking, neither 
are there everywhere the signs of money-making. An English- 
man cannot fail to be much pleased with Boston, its vicinity, and 
its inhabitants ; it is his ov/n country over again, deficient indeed 
in the charm of association with the virtues and glories of antiquity, 
but, on the other hand, free from the blight of poverty and the 
sorrows of ill- rewarded toil. 

About two miles from the cemetery is the town of Cambridge, 
containing nearly nine thousand people. Twenty years after the 
landing of the Pilgrim Fathers, a college was founded here, which 
now exists in great prosperity. Harvard University is more richly 
endowed than any other in the Union ; it has a President and 
twenty-seven professors and instructors, and from four to five 
hundred students are generally upon its rolls ; they are younger 
than those at our colleges ; in many respects it more resembles 
one of the large public schools. No particular religious tenets 
are inculcated ; the youths have the option of attending the doc- 
trinal exercises or not, as they think fit. 

The Navy Yard of the United States is at Charlestown, about a 
mile from Boston ; it is of considerable extent, containing about 
sixty acres. There is a magnificent dry dock of hewn granite, 
fit to receive vessels of the largest size ; also large wooden sheds 
for ship-building, where two large vessels are now in progress. 

I passed a very pleasant day at Nahant, with a most agreeable 
family, who had a nice and roomy cottage near the water's edge 
at this favorite bathing-place. On my way there, T passed by the 
village of Lynn, containing six or seven hundred people ; every 
one of them who is old enough and strong enough to carry an awl 
or a needle is a shoemaker ; they make millions of pairs of boots 
and shoes every year, which are afterwards sent off and sold to 
tread the cotton-fields of the South, the prairies of the West, and 
the streets of the Atlantic cities. From this useful little nook, 
part of the road lies along the sandy beach, when the tide is out, 
and is as hard as granite. 

Nahant is a peninsula, bare, rocky, and uneven ; the shore, 
towards the Atlantic, is bold and precipitous, but there are 
sheltered places, with an inclined beach for bathing. The air is 

PART II. 5 



74 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



said to be very healthy, and much cooler than that of Boston. I 
can vouch for the truth of the latter statement. In the evening 
we went to the hotel, where some very good tableaux vivans 
were got up by the visitors, the subjects all taken from Master 
Humphrey's Clock. The author of that work, in spite of their 
soreness about his " Notes," is universally admired by the 
Americans. There were about a hundred people staying in the 
house, leading much the same sort of life as at Saratoga ; but the 
companj^ appeared to be less mixed in rank ; nearly all of them 
were from Boston. 

Nahant is the place where the great Sea Serpent was included 
by the papers among the fashionable arrivals for several successive 
seasons. This announcement no doubt greatly increased the 
number of visitors, all hoping to witness so remarkable an arrival, 
and was proportionately useful to the hotel-keepers and the pro- 
prietors of houses in the neighborhood. At present the accom- 
modations are always speedily taken, usually at very high rates, 
so the huge fish has not lately found it necessary to appear upon 
the coast. 

I think Nahant affords the most extraordinary mixture of 
religious tolerance I have ever heard of. There is a small 
church of the simplest structure, for the use of the inhabitants 
and visitors, in which the clergymen of different persuasions who 
happen to be staying in the neighborhood, perform service accord- 
ing to their own views, either in turn, or as their leisure may 
allow of it. All the people, at least all those who would go to 
church anywhere else, attend this; not knowing, perhaps, till 
they enter the door, whether their pastor may be a Roman Catholic 
or a Baptist. These unprejudiced people are furnished with a 
very favorable opportunity of judging of the merits of every 
different shade of Christianity, and modifying their views on the 
subject accordingly. The only thing my informant seemed to 
think singular about it was that it astonished me. 

There were few things in the United States that I had a greater 
wish to see than the factories of Lowell, and I accordingly took 
early steps to accomplish it. It is by railroad twenty-six miles 
from Boston, on the Merrimack River ; the site was chosen on 
account of the extensive available water-power which it possesses ; 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 75 



a canal sixty feet wide supplies the stream to the wheels of the 
mills. It extends to the length of a mile and a half from the head 
of some falls higher up the river, called by the euphonious name 
of Pawtucket. Five and twenty years ago Lowell was a solitude ; 
now there are five-and-twenty thousand people; there are ten 
wealthy companies of cotton manufacturers, employing six 
thousand five hundred females, and two thousand five hundred 
males ; there are also cloth factories, a powder-mill, foundry, and 
various other sources of employment for the population. These 
ten companies have thirty-three mills, besides printworks. The 
average wages of men is ten shillings a week, women seven, 
over and above their expenses of living. They are well fed, and 
have neat and airy dwellings. I was shown over some of them ; 
they were very clean, and a few had little book-cases, bird-cages, 
and boxes of flowers, with altogether a great air of comfort. 

Any flagrant case of immorality is punished with dismissal, 
when brought to the notice of the authorities ; both sexes are 
generally well conducted, considering the temptations of so 
populous a town. It is, however, I grieve to say, insinuated 
that their moral state is not so immaculate as many people fondly 
believe, nor does the increase of purity keep pace with the pro- 
gress of the town. There are a great many schools, with wise 
regulations for the education of the people employed, and no fewer 
than fifteen places of worship of different denominations. The 
place was named after Mr. Francis Lowell, of Boston, the great 
founder of the cotton manufactures in his country. 

There is little doubt that, without the tariff protection, now so 
likely to be removed, these works could not have prospered and 
increased as they have done. The duty of more than a third of 
the value charged on cotton cloths has been nearly prohibitory to 
the produce of English looms, and thrown a great part of the 
home trade into the hands of the American manufacturers. Now 
they have so much improved their arrangements and are so firmly 
established; that in China and in other foreign markets they can 
rival the English in the coarser kinds of cotton cloths; for in 
them they can afford to put a better material, as they get it 
cheaper, and but very little labor is required. Their advantages 
are, that their choice of cotton is at hand, water power cheaper, 



76 HOCHELAGA; OR, 



and poor rates less. In England, on the other hand, wages are 
lower, capital demands less return, and machinery is better and 
cheaper. In the fabric of the finer sorts and in the printing of 
all, Lowell cannot compete with Lancashire ; in the manufacture 
of woollen cloth it is far inferior to Yorkshire. 

But, in an infinitely higlier point of view, Lowell stands un- 
questionably pre-eminent among manufacturing towns ; the inter- 
ests and welfare of the people are attended to with the most en- 
lightened liberality, and as yet it is comparatively free from that 
dark mass of crime and misery which defiles our large commu- 
nities. But it has had no stormy times, no working short hours, 
with crammed warehouses and none coming to buy. I fear the 
evils which have hitherto been found inseparable from the system 
of great congregations of people are beginning to appear : the 
alteration of the tariff will bring on the day of trial. 

The establishment of any sort of manufacturing industry here, 
from shoes upwards, appears to me an error. The men so em- 
ployed could get higher wages in the agricultural labors of the 
West, where they would be free from the danger of contamination 
in crowded cities. If the English Corn Laws be materially re- 
laxed, the cultivation of these grain-growing districts will be still 
more profitable ; while, by a removal of the American prohibi- 
tory duties, all articles of clothing could be obtained at one-third 
less price than that now exacted, and paid for in food to England. 

Without giving an opinion on the advantages of free trade for 
ourselves, I cannot see the possible cause of its being denied to 
the people of the United States, where there is no vital interest to 
be endangered, no great mass of people or capital to be put out 
of employment ; for who can doubt that a few months would ab- 
sorb the scanty manufacturing population of New England among 
the millions of the new States, and that, in all probability, their 
condition would be thus very much improved? I have. said be- 
fore, that they can in some coarse cloths rival the English facto- 
ries ; but why should they try, when they would be so much 
better off elsewhere ? I have not the least doubt that, if my 
friend from Chicago, and his western neighbors, could sell their 
corn in England, they would not for any length of time allow the 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 77 

interests of the Lowell capitalists to stand in the way of their 
barter. 

The factories are well built and ventilated ; from water power 
being used, cleanliness has not got smoke to contend with. There 
were three hundred women in one which I visited, all young, and 
not more sad or unhealthy-looking than the generality of Ameri- 
cans ; but I cannot say that I was so much struck with their 
beauty and neatness of apparel as many of my predecessors have 
been. I saw, however, one very pretty girl, her hair smoothly 
braided, with a bow of blue ribbon placed coquetishly among the 
folds ; her manner was very pleasing, and her conversation highly 
intelligent. She looked so gay and happy that I am sure the dark 
brown hair, and the blue ribbon, and the still bluer eyes (for 
whose glances I found the spinning-jenny a most formidable and 
successful rival), had just made some conquest ; I mean besides 
myself, for I certainly was one. I went to the extent of pur- 
chasing a " Lowell Offering" for her sake, but my constancy 
failed me and I did not read it. Should this ever happen to meet 
those bright blue eyes of hers, I wonder whether she v.ill recol- 
lect a fat elderly gentleman admiring her through a pair of spec- 
tacles, and saying as many agreeable things as the quick ascent 
of a long flight of stairs had left him breath to utter ! 

Boston is not at present much given to dramatic amusements : 
in the winter there are two or three theatres ; one, the •' Howard 
Museum," is a large, rickety affair, which is constantly examined 
by the city authorities, to see when it will probably tumble down. 
It was built as a place of worship for the " Millerites." The 
proprietor of the ground — on the bold speculation of the world's 
lasting longer than, I think, the year 1843 — the limit they con- 
sidered fixed, let it to them for a short period at a fair rent, on 
condition that, in case there should be a world at the end of the 
time arranged, that portion of its surface in question was, together 
with the buildings to be erected upon it, to become Jiis. To the 
great surprise of the Millerites, and to the great profit of this en- 
terprising speculator, the unlooked-for contingency did occur, 
and he immediately converted the church into a theatre. 

The night I was there, " Money" was the play acted. Sir F. 
Blount was dressed in the newest style of New York fashion that 



78 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



the tailor's pictorial representations could supply. I must say 
that the audience seemed to appreciate highly the heavy hits at 
English failings and climate, so numerous in this piece. There 
were no divisions of pit, gallery, and boxes ; every one had a 
chance of getting a good place ; mine was a very bad one, so I 
did not stay long in any one's way. The audience was very 
orderly, the manifestation of applause or displeasure very slight. 
The mixture of people was curious enough ; the country clown 
in his fustian, sitting next to the gold-chained, long-haired dandy, 
looking much the better and honester fellow of the two, by the 
bye. The Americans are very fond of wit and humor, and no 
joke passes unobserved : in their own peculiar way they abound 
in it, and there cannot be a surer road to their favor than by its 
exercise. From their grave manners and exterior, this love of 
fun is not at all observable at first sight ; it is developed in so 
quiet a way, particularly if played off upon yourself. No people 
are better able to put any absurd peculiarity or groundless pre- 
tension in a more ludicrous light ; and I believe any degree of 
wrath might be turned away, if you could only once get them to 
laugh. With them, even jokes must appeal more to their reason 
than their fancy, and be more or less connected with the train of 
their familiar ideas. Some years ago a New England newspaper 
gave the following, headed " Shocking dishonesty." " The in- 
ventor of the perpetual motion decamped last night, without even 
paying the man who turned the crank in the cellar." Every 
one has heard this before, but 1 bring it forward here as a sample 
of fun purely American. 

The usual family dinner hour at Boston is from three to four, 
and, unless in a very large party, this rule is not broken in upon ; 
the hours of evening parties are also very early. Among people 
who are tolerably intimate, the greater part of the visiting is car- 
ried on in the evening. Dancing is not usual at small parties, 
and, indeed, where society is so very agreeable, it would be great 
waste of time. The ladies particularly struck me as being very 
well informed, and much more efficient in conversation than — 
certainly the younger portion of, the men. Perhaps they do not 
altogether conceal their knowledge of this fact, and in some mea- 
sure, but very slightly indeed, take rather a tone of instruction, 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 79 

looking upon the initiative as their duty, as also the explanation 
of any difficulties which may arise. A very pretty young lady, 
one evening, quoted three or four words of a well-known Latin 
sentence while speaking to me, and, lest I should feel puzzled, 
kindly translated it before continuing her observations. This 
must have been from habit, for as she had never seen or heard 
of me five minutes before, she could not have had time to discover 
any classical deficiencies on my part. 

There are many comfortable and almost handsome equipages 
to be seen in the streets of Boston ; crests and armorial bearings 
are not uncommon, but liveries are seldom used. The horses 
are very good, but the shape of the carriages is not sightly, and 
the work rather clumsy, reminding you more of France than of 
England. The business parts of the town are so filled with con- 
veyances of every sort that you are often detained for minutes at 
a crossing. In cases of collision, the laws are always against the 
driver, whether through his awkwardness or not, he is sure to 
get the worst of it in case of complaint or accident. The public 
conveyances are very good, and under strict police regulation. 
For a short time in winter, sleighs are in general use, but they 
are not usually got up with such taste and expense as in Canada. 
Some of the ladies of the wealthy classes are seen in the very 
cold weather driving about in a covered conveyance, enclosed 
partly with glass ; it is a monstrously grotesque-looking affair, 
and its name is worthy of the appearance ; it is called a " Booby- 
hut." In the coldest weather it is unusual to see people wrapped 
up in furs as at Quebec or Montreal ; they brave out the frost in 
common bonnets and hats, even when the thermometer is below 
zero. The harbor is occasionally frozen over ; the mail steam- 
packet for England had, on one occasion, to be cut out, for a con- 
siderable distance. 

I was, on another occasion, for some time at Boston during the 
winter, and v/as present at the two hundred and twenty-sixth an- 
niversary of the day when 

" A band of exiles moored their bark 
On the wild New England shore." 

The 21st of December, 1620. In December, 1845, the. 21st 



80 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



fell on a Sunday, so the celebration was appointed for the Monday- 
after. The small town of Plymouth was the first place of settle- 
ment of the pilgrim fathers, and the scene of the festival held to 
commemorate the event of their landing. A railroad had just been 
completed from it to Boston, which conveyed thousands of peo- 
ple thither on the appointed day. The morning was very cold, 
the thermometer some degrees below zero, the sun shining with 
a dazzling but frigid brightness. The snow lay deep on the 
ground, trampled in a dry white sand by the crowds of people 
who swarmed into the roads. Plymouth is a dreary, irregular 
place, the buildings chiefly of wood, the streets very wide, with 
large gaps between the blocks of houses, and two or three staring 
new white or green hotels, with summer verandahs round them, 
adorned by close rows of icicles, long and sharp, like some mon- 
ster's teeth. I shouldered my carpet-bag and soon took possession 
of a room in one of them, engaged for me beforehand by a friend, 
where a warm stove consoled me for the absence of any other 
furniture. 

At twelve o'clock, the members of the Pilgrims' Society and 
many strangers, myself included, formed into a procession, walk- 
ing two and two, commencing at the railway station and proceed- 
ing to the principal place of worship, which belongs to the Unita- 
rians. We passed by the " Plymouth Rock,'^ the first stopping 
place of the pilgrims in the New World ; it has been carried into 
the principal street of the town, where it is surrounded with an 
iron railino; on which the names of the "Fathers " are engraved. 
Opposite to this was paraded a body of militia of about fifty or 
sixty men, in handsome uniforms ; these are called the " Standish 
guard," in honor of Miles Standish, the military leader of the 
first expedition ; they appeared to bear the cold with uncommon 
fortitude. 

The chapel is a large square building, capable of accommo- 
dating about a thousand people ; on this occasion more than 
treble that number managed to squeeze in. A great number of 
ladies, who had gone in before we arrived, filled up the pews 
around the walls, and not a few of this fair portion of the con- 
gregation wept during the service. 

In the pulpit were two clergymen of most striking and venera- 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 81 



ble appearance, one a Unitarian, the other a Baptist. By the 
reading-desk were two others ; one also a Unitarian, a man more 
than fourscore years of age, very handsome and still vigorous, 
with long white hair falling down to his shoulders, and with an 
air altogether of a sort of patriarchal dandyism. On either side 
of the pulpit stood a marshal of the ceremonies. 

In spite of the difficulty of obtaining seats, or even admission, 
perfect order, courtesy and respectful attention to the service pre- 
vailed ; the same good feeling afterwards pervaded the dinner 
and all the other proceedings of the day ; and I was informed 
that there was no policeman or constable of any kind in the town 
at the time. 

The choir, accompanied by an organ, sang an ode written for 
the occasion, describing the landing of the pilgrims in hardship 
and poverty, and alluding to the now great empire of their de- 
scendants. The air was " God Save the Queen." After this 
the Baptist minister read several portions of Scripture suited to 
the time, in a clear impressive voice : a prayer by his compa- 
nion, the Unitarian, followed, at first of much merit, but it became 
too long and fell off into verbosity and repetition. Next all joined 
in a hymn beginning " Hail Pilgrim Fathers of our Race !" to 
the air of the magnificent " Old Hundredth Psalm," the man of 
fourscore years giving out the words of each line before it was 
sung. A benediction from the minister who had given the prayer 
concluded the service. 

Then one of the marshals, with a loud voice, proclaimed that 
we were to form in procession on leaving the church, in the pre- 
cedence which he would give out ; that we were to proceed to 
the shore, pass over where the " Plymouth Rock " had been, and 
" heave a sigh on the spot." He first called out the presidents 
and vice-presidents, then the clergy, next the invited guests, next 
the members of the New York and other distant pilgrim associa- 
tions, then those of astronomical, historical and all sorts of socie- 
ties, lastly the Boston and Plymouth pilgrims ; the whole of those 
who remained then rose and made their way out with much good- 
humored crushing. The foremost ranks of the procession had 
reached the dining-room, before more than half of their followers 
had " heaved their sigh" and uncovered their heads, in passing 
5* 



S2 HOCHELAGA; OR, 



over the hallowed bed of the stone. The consequence was that 
some of the hungry pilgrims in the rear passed this altogether, 
hurrying on at once by short cuts to the goal of their pilgrimage 
for that day — the dinner-table — leaving those behind with in- 
creased appetite, and diminished chances of satisfying it. 

Covers were laid for six hundred people, in the railway station- 
house, on about twenty tables ranged in rows. On the left side 
of the entrance sat the President, in a chair which came over 
with the pilgrims in their ship, the Mayflower. His table was 
on a dais, with about a dozen of the heads of societies and the 
principal guests seated near him. The tickets for this dinner are 
obtained by purchase ; but the names of the applicants are all 
examined by the committee before they are given them, so that 
the admission of objectionable people is guarded against. Beside 
each plate were put a few grains of dried Indian corn, to keep 
up the memory of the first gift of the friendly natives to the ex- 
iles in their distress. The dinner was well arranged, and went 
off with order and regularity ; but the room, large as it was, was 
crowded to excess, and painfully warm. No wine was put on 
the table unless called for ; a great proportion of the company did 
not drink any, many being members of Temperance Societies. 
A band was in attendance to play something suitable to each toast 
or sentiment given. 

At about four o'clock, the President rose, and spoke for some 
time with fluency and effect ; his subject was the event that had 
caused their assembling that day. He sketched, in a very inte- 
resting manner, the landing of the pilgrims, the difficulties they 
met with, the persecutions they fled from, their gradual advance- 
ment, the present prosperity and power of their descendants. 
Frequently, during the evening, he had occasion to speak, and 
performed his office admirably, with infinite tact and good-humor, 
readiness and wit. After each toast or sentiment, the President 
named the person to respond, who immediately rose and made his 
way to the dais, whence he delivered his speech. They were of 
course prepared beforehand, the effect was that all said very 
much the same thing, beginning with — English persecution — 
continuing with — the landing in the howling wilderness — ice- 
bound waters — pestilence — starvation — so on to foreign tyranny 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 33 

— successful resistance — chainless eagles — stars and stripes — 
glorious independenee — then, unheard of progress — wonderful 
industry — stronghold of Christianity — chosen people — refuge of 
liberty — again, insults of haughty Albion — blazes of triumph — 
the queen of the seas deposed for ever — Columbia's banner of 
victory floating over everything — fire and smoke — thunder and 
lightning — mighty republic — boundless empire : — when they 
came to the " innumerable millions " they were to be a few 
years hence, they generally sat down greatly exhausted. One 
gentleman gave us all this in verse also, very cleverly and neatly 
done. 

One of the speakers, on rising, was greeted with long-conti- 
nued applause ; he spoke with considerable eloquence and much 
energy of action, but occasionally approached very closely to the 
sublim^e's dangerous neighbor. One expression he made use of, 
I confess, rather startled me ; in referring to the Plymouth rock, 
he said, " This spot, sacred as Runnymede, sacred as Bunker's 
Hill, aye sacred as Nazareth itself." At the close of the evening, 
the President proposed the Strangers, with some friendly and 
neatly expressed allusions to England, calling on Mr. Everett — 
lately the American Minister in London, to respond. Hearty 
cheers and expressions of regard hailed him as he rose. He was 
suffering much from indisposition at the time, and gracefully 
claimed indulgence on that ground ; however, he spoke at some 
length, and the impression he left on my mind was that of un- 
qualified admiration. His manner and delivery were perfectly 
gentlemanlike and singularly pleasing, his style classic and fin- 
ished, without a taint of pedantry, animated, eloquent, and totally 
free from effort, while good taste and kindly feeling were in every 
sentence he uttered. In the latter part of his speech, he an- 
nounced a strong conviction that, " Though the relations of 
America and England seemed at this present moment in difficulty, 
they will ultimately be arranged to the honor and satisfaction of 
both countries, who of all other nations of the earth are the most 
capable of mutual good in peace, and mutual injury in war." 
The whole assembly, to a man, cheered heartily this promise of 
peace. Would that all the people of the Union were of the same 



84 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



class of intelligence and worth, as the hospitable and courteous 
assembly at the Plymouth festival ! 

At about eight o'clock, the train for Boston was in readiness, 
and in a few minutes the room was empty, the whole proceedings 
having concluded without an angry word, or the slightest breach 
of good order. An hour afterwards, some five hundred people 
assembled in the Pilgrims' Hall for the ball, some few from Bos- 
ton, but far the greater number from the neighboring towns ; there 
were many very pretty laces, and though evidently by no means an 
exclusive affair, there were wonderfully few to be criticised or 
quizzed. The dresses of the ladies were quiet and in good taste, 
leaning rather to the French style ; the hair was generally worn 
much off the face, plain in front, at the back of the head either 
in ringlets or voluminous folds. Their figures, though not so 
much to be admired as their faces, had much grace and freedom 
of movement ; very few being afflicted with those dreadful laced- 
up enemies to natural symmetry, which sacrifice so much beauty 
as well as health among our fair country-women. Many wore 
dresses made in a very peculiar manner, appearing as if a long 
garment of equal width all the way down were put over their 
heads, and gathered close round their throats and waists, with 
running strings ; then a pair of tight sleeves, sitting wide at the 
wrist, like the mouth of a blunderbuss, made the costume com- 
plete. 

Their dances were a sort of quadrille bewitched, called by 
them Cotillon ; occasionally, a waltz in which very few joined ; 
an intricate performance named a Spanish dance, of which 1 pro- 
test that Spain is perfectly innocent ; and a country dance with 
the latest American improvements and complications ! 

The room was well lighted and prettily ornamented, hung 
round with portraits of grim old Puritans frowning down on the 
revels. The music was very fine, and the performers highly amus- 
ing ; they stretched themselves out on their benches in a most 
independent manner ; of the double bass there was nothing visible 
but a pair of boots, and the head of his huge violoncello, over the 
side of the orchestra. The leader gave out all the different 
movements of the dance, timing and attuning his voice with the 
music as he spoke, or rather sung " hands across," " ladies' 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 85 

chain," " turn your partner," and so on. The musicians gave 
us the pleasure of their company in the supper room afterwards. 

There were some gentlemanly-looking men in the room, free 
from any peculiarity of dress or manner ; but also some striking 
contrasts, with Byronic neckcloths of rainbow colors, every sort of 
hirsute abomination on their faces, besides ringlets, and flat 
greasy locks on the back of the head, waistcoats of dazzling mag- 
nificence, coats, with collars scarcely visible, and skirts of enor- 
mous size, pantaloons with enormous plaits round the waist, and 
ample width down to the foot, where they suddenly contracted into 
a sort of gaiter, leaving visible only the square end of a boot of 
vast breadth and wonderful acuteness of angle, and in short, alto- 
gether the very worst style of Young America. By the bye. New 
York is much more fertile than this place in those bearded cava- 
liers, " dealers in breadstufFs ;" and " importers of dry goods," 
with moustaches to make colonels of hussars die with envy. 

Let it be remembered, however, in the sketch which I have 
just attempted, that this Plymouth ball was quite a country affair, 
with an admixture of various classes of people. 

The same courtesy and good order that had characterized the 
dinner was carried on through the evening. The greatest re- 
spect and attention were paid to the ladies present ; as soon as 
each dance was over they returned to their seats and chaperons, 
so that their bearded beaux appeared to have but little opportunity 
of adding the charms of conversation to the impression which 
their engaging appearance must have made on their fair part- 
ners. 

At three o'clock the festival was over ; at four, I was in the 
car of the railway for Boston, at seven, in the train for Concord, and 
at eleven in a stage sleigh, from thence for Burlington. This 
conveyance is a long narrow coach with two cross benches, one at 
each side of the door, having a broad leather strap as a support 
for the back, thus giving four seats, on which eight people sat, 
two and two. What becomes of all the passengers' legs I am 
not prepared to say ; indeed mine were so cold and benumbed, 
that I cannot to this moment tell what happened to them. ' Stuff- 
ing oneself into this human pie is a great difficulty, but that labor 
fades into insignificance when compared with the achievement of 



S6 HOCHELAGA; OR, 



getting out again. Buffalo robes are crammed in to fill up the 
interstices, and over all appear eight faces, blue with cold, 
thoughtful and silent, evidently impressed with the profound im- 
portance of something or other. Two pair of sleigh runners sup- 
ported this coach and its jolly load ; those in front on a movable 
pivot like the fore axle of a carriage. Four very good horses, 
necklaced with merry, jingling bells, carried us along. All this 
time the thermometer had been sinking, till, at length, it reached 
twenty-one degrees below zero, almost a phenomenon of cold for 
that part of the country, causing really great bodily suffering to 
us poor travellers. 

At eleven that night we stopped at a wretched inn, at a place 
called Royalton, and received our sentence to start at four in the 
morning. As we entered, some half dozen scowling ruffians 
were smoking and chewing round the stove in the public room, 
with their usual accompaniments ; the walls and floor stained, 
and the house reeking with filthy fumes ; when the puffs of rank 
tobacco ceased for a moment, it was only that their mouths might 
emit language of grossness and discourtesy still more nauseous. 
The supper was well suited to the company ; without being over- 
fastidious the appetite may well fail, when your next neighbor — 
one of the chewers — after having used his knife as a spoon, 
stretches across you to cut the butter with it, or to take salt 
out of the saltcellar. At most of these country inns the knives 
are of a peculiar form, made round and wide at the end, with the 
edges blunted to save the lips, and I may almost add the throat 
from the dangerous wounds which the swallowing process would 
otherwise inflict. The sister instrument is usually a two-pronged 
iron fork, used to assist in piling the provisions on the knife, to 
prepare the mouthful. 

In the bed-room, where, by-the-bye, they for some time insisted 
on putting my servant in the second bed which it contained — the 
water in the jug was frozen. After much difficulty I lighted some 
wood in a small stove, which blazed and roared, but gave no heat. 
I prayed for a little hot water, " No, it is too late ;" I begged to be 
awakened in the morning in time for the stage, " I guess you had 
better look to that yourself." — I had, in the course of my life, 
slept in a bivouac, among the fierce Chapelgorries of Biscay, in 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 87 

a mountain hut among the wild Celts of Connemara, in the " bush'* 
of Canada with the Indians, but from the white savages of Roy- 
alton I had something still to learn of barbarous manners. The 
next night we reached the neat town of Burlington, the next, St. 
John's, Lower Canada, of which but little favorable can be said, 
and by noon the third day arrived at Montreal, having crossed the 
St. Lawrence on the ice, three miles below the town. 



88 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



CHAPTER VII. 

The Far West — Oregon 

In one of my Transatlantic voyages in a steamer, I met with a 
very singular man, a German by birth, who was on his return 
from Europe to America. He was about thirty years of age, of 
a rather small but active and wiry frame, his features very hand- 
some, of a chiselled and distinct outline ; his bright black eye 
never met yours, but watched as you looked away, with penetrat- 
ing keenness ; the expression of his mouth was wild and some- 
what sensual, with two perfect rows of large teeth, white as ivory ; 
his hair was black, worn long behind ; complexion fresh and ruddy, 
but swarthed over by sun and wind. He was never still, but kept 
perpetually moving to and fro, even when seated, with the restless- 
ness of a savage animal, always glancing round and behind as 
though he expected, but did not fear some hidden foe. His voice 
was soft and rather pleasing, very low, but as if suppressed with 
effort. 

This strange being had been educated in a German university, 
and was very well informed ; the European languages were all 
equally familiar to him ; he spoke them all well, but none perfect- 
ly, not even German ; in several Indian tongues he was more at 
home. When still young he had left his country ; struggling out 
from among the down-trampled masses of the north of Europe, he 
went to seek liberty in America. But even there, the restraints 
of law were too severe ; so he went away for the Far West, where 
his passion for freedom might find full vent, under no lord but 
the Lord on high. Hunting and trapping for some months on the 
upper branches of the Missouri, he acquired money and influence 
enough to collect a few Indians and mules, and drive a dangerous 
but profitable trade with the savage tribes round about. In course 
of time, his commerce prospered sufficiently to enable him to as- 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 89 

semble twenty-four men, hunters, Canadian voyagers, and Indians, 
well armed with rifles, with many mules and wagons laden with 
the handywork of the older States. 

He started with his company, in the beginning of April, for the 
Rocky Mountains, from Independence — the last western town, 
originally settled by the Mormons, four miles from the Missouri 
River. They travelled from twelve to fifteen miles a- day through 
the " Bush " and over the Prairies, and were soon beyond the 
lands of friendly or even neutral tribes, among the dangerous 
haunts of the treacherous and warlike Blackfeet. By day and 
night the party was ever on the watch ; though they rarely saw 
them, they knew that enemies were all around. The moment 
that there was any apparent carelessness or irregularity in their 
march, they were attacked with horrible whoop and yell ', if there 
was sufficient time, they ranged their wagons round, and used them 
as rests for their rifles, and for protection from the bullets and ar- 
rows of the Indians. 

Once they were suddenly surrounded by a more than usually 
numerous and determined body, all well mounted ; there was no 
time to form their accustomed defence ; so each man fell on his 
face ; the bowie knife, stuck in the ground, gave him in its handle 
a rest for his aim, and the hunter of the Prairie seldom shoots in 
vain ; when he fired he turned on his back to reload, thus always 
exposing the smallest possible surface to the unskilful eye of the 
Blackfoot marksman. Many of the assailants were slain, and the 
survivors attacked openly no more. 

These travellers carried no tents, sought no shelter ; wrapped 
in their blankets, they braved the wind, dew and rain ; their rifles 
gave them abundance of butTalo, deer, and mountain sheep ; and 
they sometimes had the luxury of wild potatoes, roots and nuts. 
They did not burthen themselves by taking with them spirits, salt, 
flour, food, or luxury of any kind ; for their horses there were 
rich and plentiful grasses. Sometimes, but that very rarely hap- 
pened, they ate their beasts of burthen, when the chsse had been 
for a long period unsuccessful ; fuel was not always to be had, 
and then they were fain to devour their meat raw. There is one 
great salt prairie, where some white men lost their way, fainted, 
and died of thirst. Occasionally these adventurers had lack of 



90 HOCHELAGA; OR, 



water, but when they got five hundred miles on, and into the Rocky 
Mountains, they found abundance, with many mineral springs, 
some of them of rare virtues, and a few salt lakes. The peaks 
of this grim range are here ten thousand feet high, always white 
with snow ; but the company, keeping in the gorges and the val- 
leys, felt no great cold at any time. They steered their course 
by the compass through the wilderness. 

Besides the Blackfeet, they had fierce but seldom unprovoked 
enemies, in the huge grizzly bears. Some of the hunters were 
dainty in their food and liked the flesh of this monster, and they 
were very vain of his spoils, the rich fur and the terrible claws : 
he can run very fast, and may be struck by many a bullet before 
he drops and yields ; he knows no fear and never declines the 
combat when offered ; if he once gets within reach to grasp, the 
hunter must perish ; but, somehow, these white men, weak in 
body, strong in mind, in the end crush alike the stalwart and ac- 
tive Indian, and the fierce, grizzly bear. 

For five hundred miles more, their way lay tlirough these 
Rocky Mountains ; for six hundred beyond them, they still 
steered for the northwest, till they struck on the upper forks of 
the Columbia River. Here they met with more friendly natives, 
and some of a race mixed with French Canadian blood, besides a 
few lonely hunters and trappers. Here, and further on, they 
traded and got great quantities of rich and valuable furs, in ex- 
change for their blankets, knives, guns, and other products of 
civilisation. 

Now, a great part of these vast lands on either side of the river 
are poor, wild, and desolate, and offer no home to the hardy set- 
tlers. This inhospitable and distant country is called Oregon — 
God grant the name may not be written in blood ! 

California, to the south of these regions, has a soil of exuberant 
fertility ; the climate is genial, rich woods cover it, lakes and 
rivers suited to the uses of man intersect it. San Francisco has 
a noble harbor, but the people are vile and degraded down to 
man's lowest level. They live chiefly on a large species of 
grasshopper, found in the villages in incredible numbers : they 
roast them and break them between stones into a mixture with 
Indian corn. They are nominally under the Mexican govern. 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 91 

ment ; but at that distance, its sway is merely a shadow. An 
adventurous German, named Captain Suter, raised an army of 
five hundred Indians, drilled them with words of command in his 
own language, equipped them, besieged the Mexican Governor in 
his capital of Monterey, and drove him out with shame. Ameri- 
can emigrants are crowding in every day, they are already near- 
ly strong enough to seek annexation to the Giant Republic, and 
to drive out the feeble Mexicans : but the powers of Europe will 
be more cautious in allowing the game of Texas to be played a 
second time, and on this will arise a question between England 
and America far more difficult of adjustment than that of 
Oregon. 

The adventurer prospered very much in his traffic, the next 
few years' gain enabled him to increase his party of traders to 
the north-west to sixty or seventy men, with three or four 
hundred mules ; while he, with a small body, crossed the Rocky 
Mountains to the south-west from Independence, and journeyed 
nearly a thousand miles, entering the province of Santa Fe, and 
bartering his goods with great advantage for the gold and silver 
of the rich Mexican mines. 

In this district, the people are a mixed race of Spaniards and 
Mexicans, lost and degraded, free in name, but in reality slaves 
to the twenty or thirty landholders who possess the whole coun- 
try, and tied down by the bonds of debt, mortgaging their labor 
for months together for some such miserable necessity as a 
blanket or a knife. They are cowardly, servile, and treacherous, 
retaining the vices of iheir European, and the effeminacy of their 
Mexican ancestors. Not one in a hundred of the inhabitants is 
of pure Spanish blood, and even they are redeemed from con- 
tempt only by a certain degree of ferocious courage above that 
of the rest of their countrymen. 

The vast central region of North America, between Canada 
and Oregon on the north, and the United States and Mexico on 
the south, is inhabited or rather haunted by four great Indian 
nations, the Blackfeet, Crows, Apaches and Comanches. The 
first are the most dangerous, the last the most powerful and war- 
like ; all are and ever have been alike in their hatred to the pale 
faces. It is impossible to arrive at a fair estimate of their num- 



92 HOCHELAGA; OR, 

bers ; but it is known that they are decreasing very fast ; their 
war against civilisation is constant, its result of defeat is constant 
too. 

As surely as day dispels night, as eternity swallows up time, 
the steel of the white man sweeps them away. 

Among the followers of the German was a French Canadian, 
who had been several times over the Rocky Mountains : he was 
of daring courage, capable of enduring great hardship, and one 
of his most valuable hunters. This man wandered one day from 
their encampment into the neighboring town of Casa Colorada, in 
Santa Fe, where there are about two thousand inhabitants ; being 
at the time unarmed, he was insulted and beaten by the people, 
and could make no resistance. When he escaped from their 
hands he liastened to his tent, seized a rifle and ammunition, and 
returned to the town, to the dwelling of his principal assailant. 
The Mexican saw him coming and bolted his doors. The Cana- 
dian ran round the house, firing in at the windows, vowing ven- 
geance against the unhappy inmate. The people of the town fled 
terrified, in all directions, barricading themselves in their houses, 
till some of the other travellers came and removed the enraged 
Canadian. Some time after this, at Chihuahua, he was killed in 
a drunken scuffle with one of his companions ; their leader, who 
happened to be absent for a few days, learning on his return the 
disaster that had taken place, gave the slayer a horse and some 
money to assist his escape, and heard no more of him. 

Meanwhile the priest of Chihuahua had gone to the encamp, 
ment, and buried the Canadian with the rites of the Roman Ca- 
tholic Church, sending in a bill of four pounds to the German for 
the burial expenses of his follower, and prayers for his soul ; this 
he refused to pay as he had not ordered them, nor did he think 
them very useful for the journey either of the departed spirit, or, 
what he considered much more important, that of his company. 
He was summoned before the Alcalde, where he found the priest 
ready to substantiate his claim by the oaths of two witnesses, who 
swore that the German had in their presence ordered all the ser- 
vices for which payment was claimed. As it was an object to 
keep on good terms with the inhabitants, the money was paid. 
The adventurer, however, upbraided the priest for unfair play ; 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 93 

not for suborning the witnesses, for that was a matter of course ; 
but for not giving notice of it in time to give him an opportunity 
of getting three other witnesses, for three dollars, to swear the 
contrary. The priest and the Alcalde, having applied all their 
energies to getting these dollars, had none to throw away on the 
pursuit of the murderer ; so they did not trouble themselves any 
more about him. 

The burning of the Prairies is one of the dangers and hardships 
to which these traders are exposed. In the autumn the tall rich 
grasses dry up and wither ; the slightest spark of fire suffices to 
set them alight, and then, whichever way the wind may carry it, 
the flame only ends with the mountain, the lake, or the river. 
The heat is but for a few moments, as the blaze sweeps by but it 
leaves no living thing behind it, and the smoke is dense and acrid. 
When the fire approaches no man mounts his horse and trusts to 
its speed ; that would be vain ; but they fire the Prairie to lee- 
ward, and follow the course of the burning, till enough desolation 
lies between them and their ravenous pursuer to starve it into 
tameness. The German once found the blackened track of the 
fire for nine hundred miles, and could only obtain scanty grazing 
for his cattle by the borders of the lakes and rivers on his route. . 

In the year 1844, he was delayed much beyond his usual time 
in collecting mules sufficient for his expedition, and could not 
start for Santa Fe till the middle of September. There is a low, 
hollow country, many miles in extent, about fifty days' journey 
on their road ; it is covered with gravel, sand, and stone ; there 
is no hill, rock, or shelter of any kind ; it supports no animal or 
vegetable life, for a strong withering wind sweeps over it, summer 
and winter. The adventurers have named this hideous place — 
probably from the wind — the Simoom. Great caution is always 
taken to pass it before the winter begins ; this year they were 
late, and the rigor of the season set in very early ; and, when 
they were well advanced into the danger, a thick snow-storm fell. 
There was no track ; the cattle moved painfully ; they were 
without fuel, and the stock of forage was soon exhausted. Many 
animals dropped by the way ; and, in one night, a hundred and 
sixty mules died from cold, weariness, and hunger. 

Then the hunters, who had faced many great dangers and 



94 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



hardships before, became appalled ; for the snow still fell heavily, 
and the way was far and dark before them. The next morning 
they consulted together, and agreed to abandon the convoy and 
hasten back to save their lives. An old hunter, who had served 
long and faithfully, and was known to be much esteemed by their 
leader, was chosen to state this determination to him. The dele- 
gate came forward, and, in a quiet but determined way, declared 
the mutiny. As he spoke, the German shot him dead : the rest 
returned to their duty. Leaving orders to his company to remain 
where they were, the leader, escorted by two Indians, rode back 
to the settlements : they had but little food with them ; the jour- 
ney was seven hundred miles, and they had to cross many rapid, 
swollen streams, but he arrived safely, procured supplies, re- 
turned to his people, and, after a prosperous expedition, they all 
came back in safety. 

His narrative of these events was as free from bravado, as it 
was from the expression of human feeling or remorse. 

The adventurer, being now wealthy, went to Europe, with the 
intention of settling, or at least of spending some time with his 
friends in Germany. He remained in London for a month, 
where he met some connexions who treated him with kindness. 
But the bonds of society proved intolerable to him : he gave up 
his plan of going home, and once again turned to seek the wild 
but fascinating life of the Prairie. This strange man was tho- 
roughly well informed on all the political and social conditions 
of the nations of the earth, in their poetry, philosophy, and even 
their novels. He had read and thought much : with an anxious 
effort to overcome this love of savage life, he felt deeply the evil of 
yielding to its influence, but succumbed. By this time, he is 
again in the deep gorges of the Rocky Mountains, or chasing 
the buflalo on the Prairies of the West. 

The Oregon territory, the present subject of discussion between 
England and the United States, is that portion of the North Ame- 
rican Continent lying between the Rocky Mountains and the 
Pacific Ocean — bounded to the north by the Russian possessions, at 
lifty-four degrees forty minutes, and to the south by California, at 
forty-two degrees. The mean breadth is five hundred miles, the 
length seven hundred and sixty ; it contains a surface of three 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 95 



hundred and sixty thousand square miles, more than three times 
that of the British Islands. A great river, called the Columbia, 
drains this district, receiving numerous tributaries in its pro- 
gress. 

About three hundred miles from the place where the Pacific 
receives the waters of this river, at the 46th parallel of latitude, 
two large divisions meet, one from the north-east, another from 
the south-east, both taking their rise in the gorges of the Rocky 
Mountains. There have been so many conflicting opinions given 
with regard to the nature of this country and its fitness for culti- 
vation, that it is very difficult to arrive at the truth ; I have con- 
versed with several people, who have been for years in the 
country, and are familiar with its soil and climate, and I speak 
from what I have been able to collect from these and other sources. 
Some have declared it to be a paradise, where the genial breezes 
of the west play among fragrant flowers and luxuriant foliage. 
Others tell you that it is black and sterile, darkened by perpetual 
fogs, and deluged with destructive rains. Those who descend 
from the grim passes of the Rocky Mountains see it with favor- 
ing eyes, while the sailor who has coasted along the beautiful 
and fertile shores of Mexico and California, despises its compara- 
tive poverty. 

The climate is much milder than the corresponding latitudes 
on the Atlantic coast. A gentleman who had passed seven 
winters there, informed me that, in the same latitude as the 
southern part of the Hudson's Bay Company's territory, where 
the winters are awful in their severity, his ship was often moored 
to the shore by a cable tied to the trees, and only once was there 
ice sufficiently strong to support a man. There are at the pre- 
sent time many servants of the Hudson's Bay Company settled as 
English subjects, from the mouth of Umqua river, in latitude 
forty-three degrees, northward to the Russian possessions. These 
people are under the laws of Canada, subject to the decision of 
her Courts : officers are appointed for the administration of justice 
and for enforcing its decrees, but the English have always care- 
fully refrained from interfering with Americans, though these are 
settled side by side with the English, and mingle with them. 
The number of Americans increases by immigration from the 



96 HOCHELAGA; OR, 



United States. They can at present only hold the lands where 
they settle by the tenure of possession, as the international trea- 
ties forbid the recognition of property in the soil by any individual 
of either country. 

The English have still a decided superiority in these regions, 
but the Americans are increasing more rapidly : they have not 
the patience to wait till the balance is cast in their favor. While 
the possession of this distant country is the theme of acrimonious 
discussion between two great nations, there is yet a third party, 
insignificant in might, but strong in right. This party claim by 
no subtle reasoning upon transfer by treaties, prior discovery, or 
temporary settlements ; but they hold now, and have held undis- 
turbed possession for ages — they and their fathers. To their 
claims none listen ; they have no astute diplomatists to plead their 
cause, nor powers to enforce their rights : they have not even 
been mentioned in the negotiations. What a satire on human 
justice is this quarrel of ours ! We are both strong, both grasp- 
ing ; in the heat of the dispute, the real owners are lost sight of, 
and altoo;ether forsrotten. All over this broad continent it has 
been the same ; the red man has been looked upon with no more 
consideration than the bear and the buffalo. The Indians have the 
undoubted right to the land, but that, unaided by power to main- 
tain it, is valueless. For the present they are tolerated in Oregon, 
because they are useful as hunters, to procure furs for the traders, 
and as boatmen and porters to carry their merchandize ; but 
when agriculture succeeds to this uncertain trade, they, like those 
of the Eastern coast, will be swept away. 

There were several early voyages to the North Pacific, but 
very little reliance is to be placed on the histories given by the 
navigators. Some Spanish vessels, under the command of Perez, 
are said to have explored the coast from California to beyond the 
northern limits of the present Russian possessions, anchoring in 
Nootka Sound, in 1774 : they then called it San Lorenzo. This 
is, perhaps, the first apparently authentic record of a visit by 
Europeans to these regions. Spain then claimed, under the 
Pope's Bull, the whole Western coast of the continent, from the 
Isthmus of Panama to the extreme North. 

In 1778, Captain Cook, the British navigator, landed at this 



ENGLAND IN THE NEV/ WORLD. 97 

Nootka Sound, to which he gave the name of King George's 
Sound. He also discovered and named several other remarkable 
places on the coast to the North West, but did not land anywhere 
else in the territory. The English were not aware of, and, 
indeed, to this day have strong reason to doubt, this claimed 
priority of discovery by Perez, the Spaniard, and they disputed 
the possession of the country. When the result of the adventur- 
ous Cook's discoveries was made known, many vessels sailed for 
the purpose of carrying on a fur trade there. In 1788, one 
Mears, an Englishman, who traded from Macao in an English 
ship, and with an English crew, but under Portuguese colors, 
made a temporary settlement, and built a vessel in the Sound ; 
but the following year Don Esteban Martinez, a Spaniard, 
arrived, and took formal possession for his country, capturing 
two of Mears's vessels. The Englishman appealed to his 
government for protection. Pitt instantly took up his cause, and 
demanded reparation of the haughty Spaniards. For a long time 
the Court of Madrid refused to give satisfaction. The negotia- 
tions became complicated, and both sides made preparations for 
war, but finally Spain yielded, and agreed to make ample in- 
demnity to the injured British subject, recognizing at the sam.e 
time the right of Englishmen to trade and fish everywhere in 
these seas, and to land and occupy any spot that was not the pre- 
vious possession of other people, for the purpose of carrying on 
commerce with the Indians, or making settlements there. From 
all this, it appears that, as far as civilized nations were con- 
cerned, England and Spain had the only claims of discovery and 
occupation. 

The ground of the claim made by the United States is, that 
Spain ceded to them all her rights on the American continent, by 
a treaty in the year 1819; in all the late negotiations this has 
occupied the principal place. The Washington government, 
however, introduced several subsequent discoveries, by citizens 
of the United States, on whose authority they consider this 
Spanish claim confirmed by a fresh title totally unconnected with 
the former one. Surely there cannot lie virtue in both titles ! 
Either one must destroy the other. 

It appears that in the years 1791 and 1792. Vancouver, an 

PART II. 6 



^ 



98 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



English navigator, was employed in surveying this coast. At 
the same time — say the Americans — subsequently, say the Eng- 
lish, Captain Gray, in the ship Columbia, of Boston, also visited 
these shores, and in the year 1792 sailed up the river Columbia 
for twenty miles, and named it after his ship : the name being 
since retained is the only ground for supposing that he was the 
first who entered it, and this priority is strictly denied. At that 
time Captain Gray's discovery excited little or no attention in 
America, as they had then no claim to anything beyond the 
Rocky Mountains. In 1803 they acquired Louisiana, and, with 
truly American reasoning, concluded that, as the boundary was 
not fixed to the North-west, it must extend to the Pacific Ocean 
in that direction — an extent of many thousand miles. Accord- 
ingly, Mr. JeflTerson, the then President, sent, in the following 
year, Messrs. Lewis and Clarke, to explore this coveted region 
by the route across the continent. In the year 1805, after having 
passed the Rocky Pvlountains, they struck upon one of the branches 
of the Columbia, and in less than two months floated down in 
canoes to the Pacific Ocean. Having passed the winter there, 
they returned to the United States in the following year. This 
v.^as the first effectual exploration of the Southern portion of the 
interior of this territory. 

In the same year, Mr. Simeon Frazer, of the British North 
West Company, explored the Northern districts, and formed an 
establishment there, — the first settlement in the interior. 

In 1811, the ship Tonquin, sent by Mr. Astor, of New York, 
arrived at the mouth of the Columbia River, and a settlement was 
formed for the purpose of trading with the natives. The beauti- 
ful history of "Astoria" gives the particulars of this disastrous 
expedition, and clothes it with an interest which cannot soon be 
forgotten. Mr, Tliorne, an ofiicer in the navy of the United 
States, commanded the ship ; he was a good sailor and a con- 
scientious man ; but he was ignorant of the coast, of the inhabit- 
ants, and of the happy art of encouraging unanimity and good 
feeling among his passengers and crew. The mate of the ves- 
sel had been there several times before, and knew the danger of 
trusting to the natives, but he was lost at the entrance of the Co- 
lumbia River with the boat's crew ; this damped the spirits of the 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 99 

adventurers, and deprived them of his valuable experience. 
When the settlers and a portion of the cargo were landed, the 
ship Tonquin started for the Northern districts, for the purpose 
of trading with the Indians ; but at Clayoquot, near Nootka 
Sound, a dispute arose between them and the well-meaning but 
injudicious captain. He neglected proper preparations for de- 
fence, despising his savage foes ; they suddenly assailed him ; 
resistance was vain ; he and his whole crew were destroyed. 

The next year, a party, headed by a Mr. Hunt, reached the 
settlement of Astoria by land, after having gone through incredi- 
ble hardships and dangers, and leaving the bones of many of their 
companions to whiten on the trackless desert. This reinforce- 
ment, though almost as much in need of aid as capable of bestow- 
ing it, revived the drooping spirits of the colonists. Yet another 
year and the British sloop-of-war, the Racoon, took possession of 
the settlement, in consequence of the war between her Sovereign 
and the United States. The shrewd Americans had had notice 
of the coming danger, and had sold all they possessed to the Eng- 
lish North-West Company a few weeks before, so that the captors 
had but little gain from their conquest. 

At the treaty of Ghent, in 1814, when the mutual restoration 
of conquests was agreed upon between England and the United 
States — a dead letter for the latter, by-the-bye — the settlement of 
Astoria was delivered up in due form to the previous possessors. 
In this treaty, no arrangement was entered into of the claims of 
the two countries. Since then there have been several attempts to 
settle the division of the Oregon Territory by negotiation ; the 
first, in 1818, by Messrs. Goulburn and Robinson for the British 
Government, and Messrs. Rush and Gallatin for the United 
States ; they agreed to take the 49th parallel, from the Lake of 
the Woods to the Rocky Mountains, as the boundary ; the 
Americans wished to continue the same to the Pacific Ocean, 
which the English declined, and the negotiation on this point 
ended in the following arrangement : — " It is agreed that any 
country that may be claimed by either party on the north-west 
coast of America, westward of the Stony Mountains, shall, toge- 
ther with its harbors, bays, and creeks, and all rivers within the 
same, be free and open for the term of ten years from the date of 



100 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



the signature of this convention, to the vessels, citizens, and sub- 
jects of the two powers ; it being well understood that this agree- 
ment is not to be construed to the prejudice of any claim which 
either of the two High Contracting Parties may have to any part 
of the said country, nor shall it be taken to affect the claims of 
any other Power or State to any part of the said country ; the 
only object to the High Contracting Parties being to prevent dis- 
putes and differences among themselves.-" 

At the Florida treaty, in 1819, the Spaniards made over to 
the United States, all their rights on the Western Coast of Ameri- 
ca above the confines of California. By a convention with 
Russia, signed in 1824, the latitude of 54 degrees 40 minutes 
was fixed on for the Russian boundary. The claimants therefore 
for the Oregon territory lying between the Russian Possessions 
and California, are reduced to two — England and America. In 
that same year, another attempt was made in London to settle 
this difficulty ; but the President of the United States, Mr. Mon- 
roe, announced in his message to Congress, made in the style of 
Mr. Polk's message this year, " That henceforth the American 
Continent was not to be considered as subject for colonization by 
any European power." This so startled the Transatlantic 
politicians that negotiations ceased. 

Again, in the year 1826, an effort was made in London, but 
without result ; except that it was agreed upon to continue the 
joint occupancy entered into in 1818, till one or other of the 
High Contracting Parties should abrogate it, and that a year's 
notice should be necessary from the power annulling the conven- 
tion. In all these negotiations the Americans desired to continue 
the 49th parallel to the Pacific Ocean as the boundary. The 
British Commissioners offered to accept this boundary across the 
Rocky Mountains, and west of them till it struck the upper branches 
of the Columbia River — the centre of the stream continuing it to 
the Pacific Ocean ; the north and west to be English, and the 
south and east American territory ; the navigation of the river 
being free to both nations. Subsequently, the English offered to 
give up' the country north of the Columbia to the Straits of Juan 
de Fuca, and east from the sea to Admiralty Inlet, but still in- 
sisted on the free navigation of the Columbia ; on this point they 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 101 

have always been firm. England has thus agreed to relinquish 
a considerable portion of her claims, but the United States insists 
on her giving up all, and so the matter now stands. 

Messrs. Huskisson and Addison, on the part of Great Britain, 
put forward her rights in the year 1826 in the following sum- 
mary — " Great Britain claims no exclusive sovereignty over any 
portion of the territory on the Pacific between the 42d and 49th 
parallels of latitude ; her present claim not in respect to any 
part, but to the whole, is limited to a right of joint occupancy in 
common with other States, leaving the right of exclusive domi- 
nion in abeyance ; and her pretensions tend to the mere mainte- 
nance of her own rights in resistance to the exclusive character 
of those of the United States. 

"The rights of Great Britain are recorded and defined in the 
Convention of 1790 ; they embrace the right to navigate the 
waters of these countries, to settle on or over any part of them, 
and to trade with the inhabitants and occupiers of the same. 
These rights have been peaceably exercised ever since the date 
of that Convention. Under that Convention valuable British in- 
terests have grown up in those countries. It is admitted that the 
United States possess the same rights, although they have been 
by them exercised in only a single instance, and have not since 
the year 1813 been exercised at all ; but beyond these rights 
they possess none. 

" In the interior of the territory in question the subjects of 
Great Britain have had numerous settlements and trading ports ; 
several of these ports are on the tributary waters of the Colum- 
bia, several upon the Columbia itself, some to the northward and 
some to the southward of that river, and they navigate the Co- 
lumbia as the sole channel of conveyance for their produce to the 
British stations on the sea, and for the shipment of it thence to 
Great Britain. It is also by the Columbia and its tributary 
streams, that these posts and settlements receive their annual 
supplies from Great Britain. 

" To the interests and establishments which British industry 
and enterprise have created. Great Britain owes protection ; that 
protection will be given both as regards settlement and produce, 
freedom of trade and navigation, with every attention not to in- 



102 HOCHELAGA; OR, 



fringe the co-ordinate rights of the United States ; it being the 
desire of the British Government, so long as the joint occupancy 
continues, to regulate its own obligations by the same rules which 
govern the obligations of any other occupying party." 

It must be evident, to every one who looks carefully and im- 
partially at this question, that each of the parties has some rights, 
and that an equitable division may be agreed on to the honor 
and satisfaction of both. But when the President of the United 
States claims the exclusive possession of a territory which has 
been held in joint occupancy for fifty-five years, it is not surpris- 
ing that England should speak out firmly in reply. I have, how- 
ever, little or no doubt that the question will be peaceably settled, 
notwithstanding the President's refusal to refer the claim to arbi- 
tration, either as to title of the whole, or fair partition. In these 
enlightened times, we can scarcely be guilty of the wicked 
madness of going to war on such a subject. 

The natural boundaries of the Oregon territory are, to the 
east the Rocky Mountains, to the south the Snowy Mountains, 
being nearly the line of the 42d parallel of latitude ; to the west 
the Pacific Ocean as far as the Straits of Fuca. to the north the 
Straits of Fuca from the sea to the eastern extremity, and thence 
a high ridge to the Rocky Mountains in a north-easterly direc- 
tion, separating the regions drained by the Columbia and Frazer's 
River. The two branches of the Columbia drain the whole of 
this territory ; the north-eastern is the greater of the two. This 
last rises in a cleft of the Rocky Mountains, within a few feet 
of the source of the Mackenzie River, which falls into the Arctic 
Sea. 

The source of the Columbia is one of the principal passes for 
the British traders through this chain ; it is described as an awful 
and magnificent scene. Two huge mountains, more than fifteen 
thousand feet in height, overhang the chasm. This branch is in- 
terrupted in its course by numerous rapids and cataracts, to such 
an extent as to preclude the possibility of ever navigating it 
without frequent " portages." The great southern branch of the 
Columbia rises in the valleys of the Rocky Mountains, near the 
42d parallel of latitude, close to the source of several other large 
rivers j the general direction is north-west. After an irregular 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 103 

course of a thousand miles, receiving nine considerable streams 
on the way, it joins the upper branch of the Columbia, in about 
the 46th parallel of latitude. These rivers are all bordered in 
most places by steep mountains, of volcanic origin ; some of the 
vi^aters rush through their narrow chasms with great rapidity for 
long distances, and this renders them unfit for navigation. 

The breadth of the Columbia, below the meeting of the two 
branches, is three-quarters of a mile ; thence it continues to the 
west, growing narrower to the chain of mountains near the sea- 
coast ; here a fall is formed over ledges of rock, between perpen- 
dicular walls of basalt. For more than thirty miles below, 
frequent other falls and rapids occur, and there it meets the tide- 
water of the Pacific. All these falls and rapids have been passed 
by boats descending with floods, but they are very perilous, and 
the rugged features of the country render an artificial communi- 
cation impossible. The last of these rapids is a hundred and 
twenty-five miles from the sea. The entrance of the river is 
seven miles wide ; six tributaries, all from the south, swelling its 
waters between the junction of the two branches and the falls. 
The mouth of the Columbia is the only harbor for ships on the 
whole coast, from the Bay of San Francisco in California, to the 
Straits of Fuca ; as great a distance as from Gibraltar to Dover. 
During the greater part of the year, it is difficult and dangerous 
of access ; the channel is intricate and variable, and the breakers 
are very formidable ; many vessels have already been lost there 
when circumstances appeared most favorable. The dreary coast 
south of the Columbia is bordered by dangerous reefs, and every, 
where steep and rocky ; while the north-west wind, which pre- 
vails, rolls the waves of the Pacific with great violence against 
the rugged barrier. 

The coast to the north, as far as the Straits of Fuca, has no 
harbor worth mention, but these straits contain some of the finest 
in the world. They are an arm of the sea, which separates 
Vancouver's island from the Continent, extending for a hundred 
miles to the east, and ranging in breadth from ten to thirty miles ; 
it then turns to the north-west, in which direction it continues for 
three hundred miles further, in some places expanding into wide 
bays, at others contracting into narrow and intricate passages 



104 HOCHELAGA; OR, 



among numerous islands, till at length it rejoins the Pacific. 
From the south-eastern extremity of the Strait, a bay, called 
Admiralty Inlet, extends south for a hundred miles into the 
Continent, containing numerous creeks and harbors ; the shores 
are healthy and fruitful. 

The country near the Pacific consists of ranges of hills and 
narrow valleys, running parallel to the coast ; the soil in some of 
these valleys is good, and favorable for the growth of the same 
agricultural products as England, though the weather being 
warm and dry, there is often a great lack of water. Snow seldom 
lies in the valleys, and the ground is but rarely frozen. The hills 
are covered with timber : here are perhaps the largest firs and 
pines in the world ; one of tlie former was found near Astoria, 
three hundred feet high and forty-six feet in circumference. 

Not more than four thousand square miles of all this western- 
most country is capable of cultivation. The best lands are near 
Admiralty Inlet and on the banks of the different rivers. The 
interior is comparatively level, but the soil is less productive and 
the climate more variable, though very healthy. Plains of great 
extent, covered with coarse grass, small shrubs, and prickly pears, 
form the face of the country. As you go south, the land improves 
a little, and is clothed in some places with timber, but of a useless 
kind, such as the sumach and the cotton wood. This part of 
Oregon may become an extensive grazing country, but the want 
of wood and moisture must always be a difficulty. To the east, 
towards the Rocky Mountains, the country is bare and sterile, 
covered with stony hills and deep gorges, where torrents rush 
along, fed by the melting of the snows on the summits of the 
mountains. 

The country north of the 49th parallel is called by the Pludson 
Bay Company, New Caledonia. The interior is a dreary region 
of lakes, frozen more than half the year, mountains covered with 
perpetual snow, and fierce torrents. Agriculture is forbidden by 
the severe climate and barren soil ; it is, however, well stored 
with fish and animals of the chase, and numerous inlets and 
harbors giving communication with the ocean; the rivers are 
shallow, and unfit for navigation. 

Many thousands of islands lie along this north-west coast, 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 105 

filling up a curve nearly seven hundred miles long by eighty 
broad, in the same parallel of latitude as Great Britain. They 
cover altogether a space of fifty thousand square miles, but many 
are mere rocks, and, with the exception of nine, they are very 
small. The larger ones are traversed by a range of mountains, 
apparently the continuation of the great chain running along the 
western part of the continent. This cluster of numerous islands 
is called the North- Western Archipelago. Their interior has not 
been examined, but they are supposed to be rocky and barren. 
Their outline is extremely varied, and they present innumerable 
> harbors and passages. This labyrinth of rocks has been lately 
surveyed in the hope of finding through them the long sought for 
opening from Baffin's or Hudson's Bay to the Pacific Ocean. 
The northern part of this Archipelago is in the Russian dominions, 
the southern, of about an equal extent, in Oregon ; the largest 
of the islands is called Vancouver's, and is about two hundred 
and forty»five miles in breadth ; a great number of small ones lie 
round it. Queen Charlotte's Island is next in importance : it lies 
about two hundred miles to the north-west of Vancouver's, and, 
like it, is surrounded by a great number of smaller islands. 
There are many excellent harbors on the coast ; to the north-west 
the land is fertile and the country beautiful ; the climate too is 
far milder than usual in such high latitudes. 

Another large group, called the Princess Royal Islands, lies 
between this last, and the Continent ; but little is known of them, 
and they are supposed to be of small value. Missionaries of 
several persuasions have been long laboring among the fierce and 
savage aborigines of these countries, with but little success. The 
Roman Catholics, indeed, sometimes baptize a whole tribe in a 
day, but the effect is not supposed to be very deep or lasting. 
The Protestant missionaries have tried to induce the natives to 
occupy themselves in agricultural pursuits, but the poverty of the 
soil is a great drawback to their success. Instruction is attempted 
to be conveyed to them by their own language ; books have been 
printed in it for their use. The people of the islands, especially, 
have proved themselves ferocious and dangerous, bold and 
treacherous. Numerous vessels of European traders have been 
seized by them, and all on board massacred, without there having 
6* 



106 HOCHELAGA; OR, 



been any reason beforehand to doubt the friendliness of the 
natives. It is also said that they are cannibals, and devour the 
bodies of their enemies slain in war. 

The settlements of American citizens in Oregon are all agri- 
cultural, and on a very small scale ; up to the year 1842 not 
more than two hundred were in the country, principally on the 
banks of the Wallamet River, which flows into the main stream 
of the Columbia from the south. In the years 1842 and 1843, 
nearly a thousand emigrants went thither from the United States, 
and some hundreds since, but little is yet known as to their fate ; 
many of them, however, have wandered away to the southward, 
to the richer soil and milder climate of California. Indeed, it is 
merely under the name of going to Oregon, where they possess 
certain rights, that they emigrate to California, where they pos- 
sess none ; but they will soon try to create the right of possession, 
as their countrymen did in Texas. In Oregon, the people get on 
very well, being energetic and hardy ; but at present their settle- 
ments are little more than missionary stations ; they have estab- 
lished a sort of ofF-hand Republican Government for themselves. 

The Hudson's Bay Company's forts are twenty-two in number, 
all sufficiently fortified to guard against sudden attack, such as 
they might be liable to. Several are situated on the coast, and 
they have six sailing-vessels and a steamer, all well armed, cruiz- 
ing in these seas. The furs which their hunters procure or the 
Indians sell them, and the English goods which are necessary 
for their supply, are stored in depdts on the coast. The transpor- 
tation up the country is by boats on the rivers and lakes ; between 
the waters the goods are carried by the voyageurs — the boatmen 
they employ ; these interruptions they call " portages." The 
regular servants of the Hudson's Bay Company in Oregon are 
about four hundred in number, generally Scotchmen, with some 
few Canadians. The voyageurs are all Canadians, or a mixed 
race between Canadians and Indians. A great number of Indians 
are also employed as boatmen and porters, and the influence of 
the Company'over all the native tribes is very great. 

The head-quarters of this commercial and military organiza- 
tion is at Fort Vancouver, a hundred and twenty miles from the 
mouth of the Columbia, by the river. It is a large square en- 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 107 

closure, containing houses for the factors, clerks, and other ser- 
vants of the Company, magazines for goods, and workshops of 
various kinds ; close at hand are a garden and an orchard, also a 
farm of six hundred acres near the river. Two miles further 
down the banks are grazing grounds for numerous herds of cat- 
tle ; beyond these are water-mills for grinding corn and sawing 
timber, with sheds for curing fish. Outside the fort, the voyageurs 
and Indians have their houses. This little community, including 
native Indians, contains nearly seven hundred souls. The supe- 
rior servants of the Company rule here with almost despotic 
authority. 

How, then, is the question of the division of this territory to be 
settled ? By the arrangement most considerate to the peculiar 
interests of both parties. Great Britain has given the exclusive 
right of hunting, and the fur trade of her subjects, to the Hud- 
son's Bay Company ; so far, she has made no use of the country 
except for the settlements necessary for the trade and support of 
the officers of this corporation ; and to them the navigation of the 
Columbia for the purposes of traffic is evidently of the last im- 
portance. It is said that already the stock of wild animals in the 
southern portion of this country has very much diminished, from 
the vast numbers which have been killed, and that therefore it is 
of much less value to them now than it was twenty years ago. 
Some of the harbors inside the Straits of Fuca are also essential 
to British interests, for the safety and convenience of the shipping 
trading in the Pacific. 

The American Government seeks the acquisition of the Oregon 
territory in order to form new States of the Union. For this 
purpose the southern portioji is the best adapted, being most fitted 
for agricultural and manufacturing purposes. Mr. Gallatin, who 
has been for many years employed by the United States' Govern- 
ment in this negotiation, has lately published in America a series 
of letters stating his views on the subject. His proposition is 
that the boundary line should run from where the 49th parallel 
strikes the upper branch of the Columbia River, to the tide-water 
opposite the Straits of Fuca — about forty-eight degrees twenty 
minutes, thence through the centre of the channel to the Ocean. 

This appears to me equitable, except that the free navigation of 



103 HOCHELAGA; OR, 



the Columbia is still withheld from England, though formerly 
offered as a part of other proposals. I sincerely hope that nothing 
may induce the British Government to yield this point, so im- 
portant to the future interests of her subjects ; for, difficult as are 
its waters, and barren though the upper country which it drains 
may be, they are both vital to the fur trade of a very considerable 
portion of the north-west. Besides, it would be unseemly to 
accept now, under the threatening Messages of the American 
President, a settlement in which an essential point, always before 
insisted upon, should be abandoned. In the settlement of the 
north-eastern boundary, England conceded to them the free navi- 
gation of the St. John's River, a far more important one, at least 
at present, than the Columbia. 

I consider that Mr. Gallatin's offer, with the free navigation of 
the Columbia added, would be a fair and equitable settlement for 
the interests and honor of both parties, being a little more than 
either side has ever yet offered. 

Thus, in short ; the boundary to be the 49th parallel from the 
Lake of the Woods through the Rocky Mountains to the upper 
branch of the Columbia River — from this point a line to be drawn 
to the tide-water opposite to the Straits of Fuca ; the Straits to be 
for ever free to the ships of both nations. All to the north and 
west of this line, together with the whole of Vancouver's Island, 
to be British ; all to the south and east, American territory — and 
the navigation of the Columbia River, by its upper branch, to the 
Pacific, to be common to the people of both nations. 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 109 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Religion — Education — Manners. 

The first great point which we notice in the frame- work of Ame- 
rican society, is, that it is without any provision for religion, as a 
State. Perhaps they consider their State so perfect that it has 
no necessity for connection with Christianity. In this respect 
they stand alone among the nations of the Christian world ; Eng- 
land, France, and Russia may each be mistaken in their convic- 
tion of theirs being the only true Church ; but they are all equally 
persuaded of the necessity of having some one or other to minis- 
ter to the people : they, of course, choose that Church which they 
believe to be the true one, and assist it with their temporal influ- 
ence. 

In America, no means are allotted for any system of religious 
education. The State, in some places at least, pays very great 
attention to a boy's progress in arithmetic, that he may in due 
time become a useful money-making citizen ; such an important 
matter as this could not be left to parental solicitude ; but, as to 
mere matters of religion, the youth is allowed to pursue his own 
course unrestrictedly. The clergy are supported, like favorite 
actors, by the houses they draw, and by the gifts of their audi- 
ence. In this, as in all other pursuits of this active country, 
Ihere is a good deal of competition. In every considerable town 
there are many churches, devoted to a great variety of sects and 
shades of sects ; there is no sort of influencing principle in the 
choice of that to be frequented : if the Presbyterian Church hap- 
pen to have the most exciting preacher, its pews rapidly fill ; if 
the Socinian be more fortunate, the result is the same for it. 

All the pastors are elected by their congregations, and main- 
tained as long as they please to keep them. The spiritual power 
is rarely used as a political engine, but in social life it acts very 



no HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



powerfully, particularly among women ; this standing aloof from 
the turmoil of civil life is wise and proper. The Unitarian faith, 
as I mentioned elsewhere, generally comprises the most influen- 
tial members of the community, the Episcopalian the most fash- 
ionable, the Presbyterian the most numerous, and the Roman Ca- 
tholic apparently the most devout. The Episcopalian increases 
the most rapidly at present by secession from others, over and 
above the regular increase of population and by immigration. 

Except in New England, I was much disappointed with the 
general signs of religious feeling among the American people. 
In the South a great proportion of the men do not attend any 
divine service at all, and their habits and conversations are such 
as might be expected in consequence. It is said that, in the rural 
districts of New England, the manners and principles of their 
Puritan ancestors are still strong ; and to their influence on the 
government of their States, is due the support of many of the 
severe ancient moral laws. In the original settlement of Ame- 
rica, the men whose race had had the greatest share in leavening 
the now national character, were, undoubtedly, those who left the 
mother country from a determination to resist what they consi- 
dered an unholy ecclesiastical authority, and for the sake of ex- 
ercising free individual opinion in religion. In this they suc- 
ceeded, and a similar disinclination to acknowledge any civil 
rules which did not emanate from themselves, was a natural con- 
sequence. This junction of religious feeling with a peculiar 
political tendency, has given such an impetus to the latter, as to 
render it now irresistible. 

The Irish Roman Catholics, a very numerous body in the 
States, who left their country during the action of the horrible 
Penal Laws, have, from their youth up, been accustomed to look 
upon any favored classes as the enemies of their religion, and 
they have always thrown their full weight into the scale of ex- 
treme Democracy. Their union, more than their numbers, ren- 
ders them at the present day the most important, in a political 
point of view, of the religious divisions. 

The clergy in the United States, besides being well known to 
keep clear of party interests, exercise but little sectarian zeal 
even in attempts to proselytize ; but their real influence is great 



.'ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. Ill 

and salutary : to them in a most important degree is due the bar- 
rier, still in many places remaining, between the extreme of 
rational liberty, and the anarchy and license which lie beyond. 
By acting on the minds of a majority of individuals in the cause 
of virtue, they enlist on its side the powers of government, which 
only represent the mind of this majority. 

Although there is a very great number of churches in the 
United States, the actual accommodation in many of the thinly 
peopled districts is, necessarily, but small : there is, also, a defi- 
ciency of ministers in proportion to the number of churches. The 
only source of income for the building of a church, and the sup- 
port of its clergyman, being voluntarily supplied, the people 
who have, as they think, only sufficient for their temporal wants, 
and no particular care for their spiritual necessities, are left with- 
out any provision for the latter ; and those who most stand in 
need of the offices of a minister of religion, are the very last to 
make any effort or sacrifice to obtain them. At the present time, 
the American people are nearly all so prosperous, that they can 
without difficulty supply themselves with assistance ; but, as 
population increases, and as the value of labor and individual 
prosperity diminishes, the poor can have no resource. Already 
there are millions who have no place of public worship open to 
them at all. 

As this state of things proceeds, the powerful incentive to 
virtue afforded by attendance at public worship, and by the ex- 
ample and instructions of their ministers, will cease to act upon 
individuals to the extent to which it now does ; their majority 
may cease to be virtuous, and the powers of government will then 
be ranged against virtue. The immediate evil, however, of this 
voluntary system is, that its tendency is to silence the minister 
on the subject of any darling sin in his flock ; far be it from me 
to say that this is always the result, but that such is its tendency 
there can be no doubt. Setting aside the pecuniary loss which 
the minister must undergo in being removed from his sacred 
office by a displeased congregation, he dreads it as destroying his 
means of being useful in his generation. He is thus tempted to 
adapt his words more to their tastes than their wants, and liable 
to follow, instead of directing their spiritual course. 



112 HOCHELAGA; OR, 



Religion, in America, in spite of the difficulties under which it 
labors, and the innumerable sects into which it is divided, is the 
ark of even its political salvation. Its professors, all meeting on 
the broad basis of Christian morality, predominate, at present, so 
decidedly, that in this strength is its safety ; and no act of the 
government could take place directly and ostensibly contrary to 
religion or moral right. The wise among the Americans make 
certain efforts to prepare the minds of the people by the purifica- 
tion of religion, so as to enable them to bear free institutions, con- 
sidering this the only safeguard from the threatened dangers by 
the latter. Happily for this great country, the interests of reli- 
gion and of national freedom are indissolubly bound up toge- 
ther. 

From different forms of belief being adopted by every one, 
merely from inclination or circumstances, like a civil profession, 
and also from its admixture with the earthly and practical, the 
inexpressible beauty of religion becomes less radiant. Chris- 
tianity is here more a belief than a faith, more a certainty of pre- 
sent advantage, than a promise of future good. 

The great number of sects, and their perfect equality, tends 
much to weaken the bonds of family affection. It is not at all 
unusual for four or five different persuasions to have members in 
the same household. The father, who perhaps is a Presbyterian, 
may use his best efforts to bring up his son in the same belief; 
but, as the youth proceeds in his education, he is taught that all 
Christian creeds are the same in the eye of the law, and that each 
man should choose according to his own taste ; so probably the 
first proof of his independence is given by selecting a different 
one from that of his father. Members of the same family, who 
travel by different roads to heaven, are not near enough to each 
other to hold out the helping hand in the dark and stormy day of 
life ; the strongest, holiest tie of sympathy is severed, when they 
are deprived of a common hope beyond the farewell at the grave. 
The people of New England are, without doubt, very gene- 
rally, educated ; rich and poor indeed have apparently the same 
opportunities, but practically they are different. The poor man's 
son has to lay aside his books for the axe or the plough, as soon 
as his sinews are tough enough for the work ; the rich man's, 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 113 

has more leisure to pursue his studies and complete them after- 
wards. However, he has but little to gain by eminence. The 
pursuit of wealth offers a readier course to distinction ; he meets 
here with numbers who have like objects, and whose conversa- 
tion and habits of life are formed by them. The man who labors 
to be learned condemns himself to a sort of isolation : however 
precious the object may be to him, it is not current as value to 
others. Some there are, whose love for knowledge is for itself 
alone, not for the honors and advantages derivable from it ; these 
few conquer the great difficulties in the way and become really 
learned ; but the tendency is to acquire as much information as 
may be absolutely necessary ; then to set to work to apply it, and 
make it profitable for other purposes, but not to increase itself. 
Consequently, the greater part of the national mind is but a dead 
level, like the Prairies ; — rich and productive immediately round 
about the spot where it is worked for the uses of life, but with few 
elevations from which any wide or commanding view can be 
taken, in the search for yet more fertile soil. 

This equality of education tells very well in enabling men to 
fulfil with propriety very different social positions from those in 
which they were born. The blacksmith who has made a fortune, 
has only to wash his hands ; and he does not find his new associ- 
ates either so very highly cultivated, or himself so much the reverse, 
as to place him in an uncomfortable situation. For general utility 
to the State, for the practical affairs of life, and for forcing men 
up to the almost universal level of intelligence, the democratic 
power has made admirable arrangements ; but to go beyond that 
it has thrown almost insurmountable difficulties in the way, not 
by its laws, but by the habits which its laws engender. 

The members of the legal profession are usually exceptions to 
this democracy of intellect ; in consequence, their influence over 
an intelligent people is proportionably great. They, as a class, 
are highly educated ; the wealthy, engaged in other pursuits, are 
sometimes so as individuals. 

The historical education of youth is guarded with the strictest 
attention ; works cleansed of anything which could militate against 
the only Catholic creed among Americans — thatof their superiority 
in everything over everybody, are used as the Romish teachers give 



114 HOCHELAGA : OR, 



the Douay Bible to their pupils. Democratic ideas are instilled 
into their minds as a portion of every sort of instruction. The 
man who might dare to propose freedom of political, as well as 
of religious opinion, would be looked upon with nearly as much 
horror as an abolition preacher in South Carolina. 

With her numerous schools and colleges, and people partici- 
pating in their advantages, it is a striking and oft-repeated remark 
that America has given but very little to the world's treasury 
of literature. There have indeed been, and still are, some bright 
names among her contributors, brilliant stars, but of the second 
magnitude. The excuse of her youth as a nation, will not be a 
valid plea in this case ; from the beginning of the present century 
she started with a greater number of educated men in proportion 
than England could boast — I mean of course in rudimental edu- 
cation ; now, her population is nearly a third greater than that of 
England, but who can compare the value of the writings from 
the two countries during the period ? The imagination of the 
American may be strong in flight, but the dead weight of his 
pursuits, and the tone of his associates, keeps it very near the 
ground. He is more ingenious than inventive, more bold than 
original ; his mental vision has but a narrow range, though very 
clear ; he may be a wise man but not a philosopher. 

In mental, as well as political power, the tendency of their 
habits and institutions is to force all from above and below into 
the mass of mediocrity. Literature, like fine cotton goods, can 
be imported from the Old World at a far easier rate than it is 
manufactured here ; they have neither the time to devote to it, 
nor the machinery to make it. I do not mean to say for a mo- 
ment that the Americans are deficient in any innate mental capa- 
bility necessary for the higher class of intellectual culture ; they 
no doubt have the power, as they possess the iron and wood of 
which the English cotton looms are made ; but it does not pay to 
work their matiriel for that particular purpose ; therefore they 
get philosophy, poetry, and history from us, always however 
changing the latter so as to render it fit for wholesome consump- 
tion among republicans : they send us cotton and bread in return. 

I would not have it supposed, from these general remarks, that 
I am ignorant of, or blind to the great merit of some of their writ- 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD 115 

ers : a string of names could be of no use here ; they are already 
well known in England to all who are likely to form an opinion 
on the subject. 

Although, as I said before, the finer sorts of literature are 
generally imported, there is an enormous quantity of coarse stuffs 
for daily use ; manufactured for the home market, and there 
consumed : the materiel is of native growth ; but little labor is 
bestowed upon it ; the texture is very coarse ; it serves the uses 
of those who purchase it for the day, and then it is thrown aside. 
The patterns with which it is stamped are all glare and gaud, to 
catch the eye, but, when put in wear, they are found to mix up 
together into a miry hue, the effect of the " devil's dust " used in 
making. It does not signify to the manufacturers, so their labor 
sells ; whether it stains those who use it or not, they do not care. 
Beyond anything ever known in the world before, this vast factory 
diffuses its produce among the American people, whether for good 
or evil, this gigantic power — the press. 

In a country where the opinions of the majority are the laws 
for all, any of the causes contributing to mould these opinions 
must be of great importance ; next to religion, the most perfect 
is the press. If all men were virtuous and wise, there could be 
no doubt that a pure democracy would be the most perfect form 
of government for human communities ; if all the powers of the 
press were united in the cause of virtue, there can scarcely be con- 
ceived a greater blessing than it would become ; the reality is, 
however, widely different. A fair share of talent is employed 
in its conduct, but employed in fanning into flame the sparks of 
party violence, personal hatred, and national antipathy. Neither 
the floor of the Senate nor the domestic hearth is safe ; the poli- 
tical opponent is assailed in his public capacity — then with blood- 
hound scent tracked to his own fireside ; nor is even woman 
secure, if through her tender bosom a deadly wound may be 
dealt to him. 

Whatever public opinion may be on the subject, it cannot, or 
does not repress these atrocities ; the press, the supposed voice of 
public opinion, will not speak in condemnation of itself. It sup- 
ports this system as an element of power, before which the bravest 
must tremble. Any still small voice venturing to remonstrate 



116 HOCHELAGA; OR, 



is lost in a loud roar of "the freedom of the press." The law 
nominally provides for the sanctity of character, but it becomes 
a dead letter when jurors will not convict a popular offender. 
Sometimes its invasion is revenged by the awful retribution of 
the pistol and the knife. 

The tendency of the press in America is to apply itself to that 
particular portion of the character of the people through which 
their actions may be most readily influenced. Among the masses, 
the comparatively unenlightened, the passions are far more easily 
worked upon than the reason ; therefore to the passions does it 
apply. Every remote village of log-huts has one or more news- 
papers ; there is no censorship or tax of any kind ; paper and 
printing are very cheap. Some mechanic probably is the editor, 
in the intervals of his bodily labor; no capital, of character, 
talent, or money is required, and the engine is set in motion. 
One column is perhaps devoted to local affairs, roads, rivers, &c., 
in which the name of any one obnoxious to the editor is at his 
mercy, if he chance to be in any way concerned in these mat- 
ters, and sometimes even when he is not. General politics fol- 
low, when the opposite party, men and measures, are assailed 
with the coarsest and most virulent abuse. Then scraps of foreign 
intelligence, distorted and rendered agreeable to their readers; 
a collection of jokes, description of sea serpents or other wonders, 
scraps of heart-rending romances, by some village Alphonso or 
Altamira, and advertisements of various kinds, fill ap the remain- 
der of the valuable publication. Of these last some deform the 
public prints by a grossness of language and detail, difficult to 
convey an idea of without imitating the fault. 

I am aware that, in a country constituted like the United States, 
the freedom of the press is an absolute necessity ; when all are 
judged fit to govern, all should be capable of distinguishing be- 
tween the good and evil which the press sets before them. The 
immense number and variety of newspapers, and their very low 
price, in a great measure nullify the evil of their license ; opi- 
nions directly contrary to each other, on almost every subject, 
are given to the public to choose from ; facts being stated in a 
great many different ways, the chances are that the truth may be 
clearly inferred. The Chinese proverb says — " A lie has no 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW, WORLD. 117 

legs and cannot stand, but it has wings and can fly far and wide." 
So do the mis-statements of the press, but others just as numerous 
and entirely opposite fly with them at the same time. Where 
every public man, on one side or the other, is branded as a traitor, 
a coward, and a villain, the force of these epithets is diminished 
if not destroyed ; the real evil inflicted upon the good is but slight, 
while the restraint upon the corrupt and bad is very great. The 
press is ever on the watch to seize on, and show up, the slightest 
dereliction of duty in an opponent ; and, though the motive of 
the attack may be mean and personal, the public is the gainer by 
the punishment of the offender. 

With people like the Americans, so entirely engaged in the 
toils of life, there is but little leisure for any other sort of reading. 
The press, with all its rainbow variety of colors, in the main, 
blends into light ; the suggestions and ideas of men in far distant 
places are laid before the people with wonderful rapidity ; the sci- 
ence of government takes some sort of form in their minds when 
the discussion of its details is ever before them. 

On the great principle of their institutions, the press and the 
people are agreed ; of the men entrusted with their administra- 
tion, and of their measures, the variety of opinions is infinite ; 
every possible point of good or evil is placed before them in the 
clearest light by one or other of the contending parties. The 
practice of receiving conviction from these materials is the prac- 
tice of government itself. All these numerous varieties are but 
fractional sections of two great parties, one ranged in the attack, 
the other in the defence, of the existing Executive. In these 
combats there is no broad principle of action employed or recog- 
nized by either party, but in its place, an infinite number of small 
and local interests, whose only bond of union is in this attack or 
defence. 

If, at any time, a large proportion of the press can be brought 
to bear upon any particular subject, its power is enormous — irre- 
sistible, if not opposed by counteracting effort. The means of 
forming public opinion by the press, which is sometimes employed 
by a compact and intelligent body, for a given purpose, are very 
injurious. I can best illustrate them by an imaginary example. 

A certain body of merchants at New York are very anxious 



HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



for the speedy and peaceful settlement of the Oregon question ; 
they determine that a fair arrangement and one to which England 
would probably accede would be, to grant her all the territory 
north of the Columbia, and that she in return should open the 
navigation of the St. Lawrence to the United States. A few 
days afterwards, paragraphs appear in some obscure country pa- 
pers, at Bangor in the north, Chicago in the west, and Savannah 
in the south. *' We understand that a large and influential body, 
in one of our principal cities, have declared favorably upon the 
lately proposed arrangement of the Bangor difficulties, on the 
principle of mutual concession, &;c., &c. We are usually in- 
clined to regard with distrust the views of our wealthy neighbors 
of the great mercantile communities, but we cannot deny that this 
mode of settling the question, presents advantages which are at 
least worthy of consideration, but we would recommend caution 
to the numerous citizens who appear to have taken it up so warmly 
and decidedly." 

Next day at Portland, Buffalo, and others, with slight variations 
you read as follows — " We see that our Bangor contemporary 
yields a sort of reluctant approbation to the Oregon arrangement 
lately proposed by some of the most distinguished men of the 
Union, and received so favorably by our fellow-citizens. For 
our part, we have always expressed our preference for an advan- 
tageous and honorable peace to an expensive and doubtful war; 
we shall however let him speak in his own words." Here fol- 
lows the first paragraph. 

A short time afterwards some leading journals at Boston, New 
York, and New Orleans put forth this sort of article : " We find 
with much pleasure that the fair and advantageous adjustment of 
the claims of America and England upon the Oregon territory 
which has lately been so extensively discussed in private among 
our fellow-citizens, has found loud and able advocates in the press, 
of various shades of opinion, in distant parts of the Union. The 
public mind seems generally to regard it so favorably, that it 
will no doubt be taken into serious consideration by those en- 
trusted with the care of our interests. It is needless to multiply 
evidences of this state of feeling, for it cannot have eluded general 
ooservation ; but we give the remarks of some of our distant co- 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 119 

temporaries, the organs of the different parties in their immediate 
districts." Here follow portions of the former paragraphs. 

By this ingenious arrangement and combination, the majesty 
of public opinion is thrown into the scale of the reader's doubts, 
though perhaps he may be one of the first persons, except the 
original contrivers, and the editors in their interest, who ever 
thought of, or argued in his mind the question in that shape. 

The very eminent men in America are never directly con- 
nected with the press ; its combats are too close and disabling to 
be entered upon without loss of dignity ; but they frequently avail 
themselves of it as a means of giving their opinions upon any par- 
ticular crisis, and supply it with carefully amended copies of 
their speeches, that is, what they should have said, not what they 
did say. The general class and tone of the American newspa- 
pers is very much that of the unstamped publications of London. 
Some of those published in the Atlantic cities are, however, of the 
highest respectability, and conducted with great talent. All are 
very cheap, the expensive system of correspondents, and the first- 
rate writers employed by the London papers are, of course, out 
of the question here. A French paper is published at New York, 
and conducted with considerable ability ; its views are moderate, 
its circulation very great ; and it is said to be worth a large 
yearly sum of money. 

Manners are of more importance than laws ; upon them in a 
great measure the laws depend ; the laws touch us here and 
there, now and then ; manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt 
or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine, by a constant, 
steady, uniform, iuvsensible operation, like that of the air we 
breathe. They give their whole form and color to our lives; ac- 
cording to their quality they aid morals ; they supply them or 
they totally destroy them. 

The eloquent historian of the French Revolution has dismissed 
the subject of American manners in a single paragraph : " The 
manners of the Americans are the manners of Great Britain — 
minus the Aristocracy, the landholders, the army, and the Es- 
tablished Church." This would, I think, have been more cor- 
rect, if he had said the influences of those bodies. In England, 
when a man rises to the upper ranks of the community, he usually 



320 HOCHELAGA; OR, 



adapts himself by degrees, in the progress of his prosperity, to the 
habits and tastes of the class he aspires to join. Those who have 
been born in it furnish him with examples; when he is ad- 
mitted into their society, his pursuits, interests, and manners be- 
come, to a considerable extent, identified with theirs. In America, 
the prosperous man finds no fixed class to look up to for example, 
no established standard of elegance and refinement to guide^him, 
no society of men of leisure to mix with, none who have been 
able to devote their time to the sole cultivation of the graces of 
life. The polish of his manners must be, therefore, due to some 
innate virtue of his own, not to the tuition of others. I have met 
with people in America as well-bred and graceful in their man- 
ners as men need be ; but they are the exception?; the tendency 
is to force manners into mediocrity, as well as everything else. 
From the want of high standards of refinement, not only the 
higher, but the various downward steps in the social scale, suflfer 
a certain inconvenience ; becoming of course less, as the condition 
of the person requires more exertion for the mere support of life 
than for its ornaments. Hence it is that the manners of all classes 
of Americans, except the very lowest, are decidedly inferior to 
those of the corresponding classes wherever an aristocracy exists. 
An American may be well educated, have travelled a great deal, 
be of the kindest disposition, possess imperturbable good-humor, 
but he has very rarely natural tact, or that admirable schooling 
in society which supplies its place. His real goodness of heart 
will prompt him to avoid bringing any object or subject to the 
notice of a stranger which might be disagreeable or painful ; but 
the probability is, that it will be done in such a way as to make 
it more unavoidably remarkable. For instance, a friend in giv- 
ing me hints as to what was best worth seeing in the Capitol at 
Washington, said, " There are some very interesting paintings. 
Oh ! I beg pardon, I mean that there is a splendid view from the 
top of the building." 1 knew perfectly well that those paintings, 
which his good-nature rebuked him for having incautiously men- 
tioned, represented the surrender of Burgoyne and other similar 
scenes — in reality about as heart-rending to me as a sketch of the 
battle of Hexham would be. To this day, I admire my friend's 
kind intentions more than his tact in carrying them out. 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 121 

American society is exclusive even to a greater extent than 
that of other countries, but they are exclusives by degrees, not 
by classes. A certain body will reject candidates for admission 
to its numbers, not because they are deficient in character, po- 
liteness, education, or wealth, but merely because those who al- 
ready belong to it, hold a certain sort of irresponsible power, which 
is strengthened by being capriciously exercised. Since in public 
life their institutions forbid the existence of a privileged class, the 
natural longing of the human heart for some vain position of su- 
periority, finds vent in private coteries. The few titles they can 
attain are sought after with avidity, and retained with fond perti- 
nacity ; the number of honorables, and of men of high military 
rank, provoke the observation and the smiles of every traveller in 
this country.. On one occasion, in a steamer, a number of pas- 
sengers signed their names to a certain document ; several of 
these titles were on the list. I found out subsequently that the 
principal ' Honorable' was the editor of a small paper ; the lead- 
ing ' General,' a tamer of wild beasts. These titles, however, 
do not convey to the Americans the same ideas which they do to 
us ; they are connected in our minds — though there may be 
exceptions — with certain high and respected social conditions, 
and they are, therefore, passwords for consideration : from them, 
on the contrary, they obtain no consideration and are, probably, 
connected in their minds with the editing of small newspapers and 
the taming of wild beasts. 

The only real eminence among Americans is the possession of 
wealth ; it is at the same time the criterion, and the reward of 
success, in the great struggle in whjch all are engaged, [n con- 
versations with foreigners, the Americans impose upon themselves 
the difficult task of defending and apologizing for every weak 
point of their people, country, or climate. They fancy that they 
have convinced themselves of their superiority over every one in 
the world, and are very uncomfortable if they cannot persuade 
others into the same difficult faith. As, in spite of their utmost 
eloquence, they sometimes fail in this, they then remain uncom- 
fortable ; their vanity is wounded ; they have not the pride of* an 
acknowledged position to fall back upon, and perhaps are haunted 
by some faint doubts as to the justice of their pretensions. These 

PART ir. 7 



122 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



subjects are sure to be more or less disagreeable, and yet they are 
almost invariably introduced. As a nation, their ideas may be 
compared to those of an individual who is suddenly raised to a 
rank above that in which he was born. 

A well-known peculiarity of the Americans is their curiosity. 
This is naturally more observable among the lower classes. They 
do not hesitate to ask you the most impertinent questions, without 
in the least intending to give offence by doing so. They cannot 
bear that anything should be kept secret from them, reserve and 
aristocratic exclusiveness being, in their minds, associated together. 
They have no objections to tell you all their own affairs, and con- 
sider that you should be ready to barter by telling them all yours. 
I think, however, that the descriptions of this peculiarity have 
been exaggerated ; I never found it carried to any very disagreea- 
ble extent, for they readily see if it be annoying, and are too good- 
natured to continue it. 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 123 



CHAPTER IX. 

Democracy. 

We have already seen that the government of America is now a 
pure Democracy, without check or stay ; it is free from all agita- 
tion for increase of power to the many, for they possess all. In 
the formation of their Government they had no difficulties to con- 
tend with, no conflicting principles to embarrass them, no small 
but powerful class enjoying vested rights, ready to defend them to 
the utmost and to revenge their loss, no memory of oppression to 
wipe out with retribution, no individual or corporation willing or 
able to make an effort for power. 

They had no existing depository wherein to place the supreme 
rule ; they declined creating one, and kept it to themselves in 
each different State, as well as in the Federal Government, no 
matter what were the varieties of race or of social circumstances. 

At first sight, it would appear probable that the people would 
select the most able and virtuous men from among those whose 
views suited their own, to be their organs of administration ; as, 
of course, they are anxious for the prosperity of the State to which 
they belong. But the practical effect of their system is, that such 
men are nearly excluded from any share in politics. The mass 
of the electors are men not sufficiently enlightened to make a good 
choice ; and it cannot be expected that the majority of individuals 
among the working classes should be able to discover and dis- 
criminate the powers of a statesman. They are, therefore, very 
liable to choose a person withput these qualifications, but possessing 
the art of making them believe that he has them, and of assimilat- 
ing himself to their tastes. Again, many men are jealous of the 
advantages of office, and do not like to add them to the already 
enviable distinction of merit ; this superiority would be obnoxious 
to a powerful, though unacknowledged, feeling of the human 
heart. 



124 HOCHELAGA; OR, 



Wealth is often a stumbling-block in a candidate's way : peo- 
ple are not exactly angry with him for being rich, but there is a 
sense of irritation in their not being so too ; neither is he, they 
think, one of themselves. Men enjoying the qualifications held 
necessary for public office in other countries, most likely with- 
draw from the arena altogether in this, finding that their merits 
are actual drawbacks to their chance of success. In ordinary 
times, it is not, perhaps, essential to have eminent talent and virtue 
at the head of affairs ; for their direction is held and controlled by 
the people : in times of peril, when the people must, for a season, 
trust this guidance to individuals, they have usually the good 
sense to choose better ; if their choice does not answer, they 
change, but in the mean time much mischief may have been done. 

In the Southern and Western States, where education is imper- 
fect, religion and morality but weak, society but imperfectly 
organized, the selections of their representatives are sometimes 
peculiarly unhappy. In the North and East, where the better 
influences are most favorable in their action, more virtuous and 
conservative men are usually chosen. The Senate — which is the 
chosen of the chosen, — is amazingly purified by this double 
election : it contains nearly every great and good man in public 
life, and its decisions are very frequently contrary to those of the 
House of Representatives, the direct delegates of the people. Both 
houses have usually the same political end in view ; but the 
Senate is more judicious and virtuous in the means of attaining it. 

The most able and philosophic writer who has of late years 
examined the government of America, is inclined to extend still 
further this system of double election, as the only safeguard 
against the dangers of Democracy. This is, indubitably, true, 
but it is prescribing to the patient a remedy which nothing will 
tempt him to accept ; he is unconscious of any malady, and will 
not give up a dearly cherished privilege, to effect what he thinks 
an unnecessary cure. 

As matters now stand, one great inconvenience of the pure 
Democracy is that laws constantly change ; a taste for variety is 
one of its strongest characteristics. They make an effort and 
pass a law ; they soon find that it has not all the good effects they 
calculated upon, disappointment follows, next they wish to try 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 125 

something else. So that law ceases to be a rock whereon a light- 
house may be built to warn man from danger, and becomes a 
shifting sand, where no beacon can be moored that will stand a 
gust of popular excitement. 

The austere Washington, the amiable Hamilton, and the ruth- 
less Jefferson, all acknowledged the evils of Democracy : the most 
sanguine could only hold them as less than those of other forms of 
government. To the mass, the ignorant and poor, its advantages 
are, at best, doubtful ; to the wise and rich it must be for ever 
odious. 

In this community there is no one to lead : their public officer, 
from the President downwards, has neither intrinsic influence nor 
honor : he is still the Tennessee attorney changed but to plead 
upon the briefs which they may supply ; he is not the representa- 
tive of their power, but its instrument : in his political action, in 
his household, in his manner, he is but their creature ; if the 
puppet cease to play according as they pull the string, they 
crush it. 

All men entrusted with power are paid — the Legislative bodies, 
the magistracy ; it is part of the great scheme to render depend- 
ence absolute. The lower grades of the public service are amply 
j'emunerated ; the higher are denied competence ; for the sympa- 
thies of the power regulating all salaries are with the clerk, the 
office porter, and the common seaman. The Governor and the 
Judge are but necessary nuisances, and the elevation of their po- 
sition above the law-makers, must be as much as possible depress- 
ed. In all despotisms, whether of the one or of the million, the 
plan of making all official influence a means of support or gain 
is adopted ; it tends to secure subservience ; the will of the ruling 
power works directly upon its subject, without being refracted by 
passing into action through an independent mind. Moreover, the 
provision enables any minion of its pleasures to accept place, no 
matter what his previous condition may have been. 

Seeking distinction through wealth is, in America, the only in- 
dependent means : there honest trade is far a cleaner road to it 
than that of political life ; even vending '' wooden nutmegs " is 
less demoralizing than pandering to evil passions. Men, therefore, 
seldom come into public life who have even the moderate degree 



126 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



of intellect and character that promises success in the pursuit of 
wealth : those who have them not usually fill official stations. 
Through these creatures whom they have chosen, the majority 
exercise a despotic power, unheard of elsewhere ; they choose 
juries, they post up private irregularities not coming under pub- 
lic law, they hunt out with their million heads, and punish, every 
offence against their sovereignty. 

Owing to there being no permanent element in this government, 
there is no tendency to any fixed line of policy : everything en- 
acted, is, as it were, done by isolated efforts of legislation, to meet 
some immediate emergency, without regard for the engagements 
of the past, or the interests of the future. Repudiation is, to 
Englishmen, perhaps a strong and familiar illustration of this. 
The tendency is, also, to put new men constantly in the direction 
of affairs ; the experience of those displaced is thrown aside as 
useless. In these general remarks which I hazard upon the go- 
vernment, I mean the government generally, both in the separate 
States and in the Federal Union. 

It is not generally known in England that taxation in America 
is very considerable : its pressure may easily be supposed to fall 
on the rich. The poor, who regulate the assessments of these im- 
posts, being the majority, and having little or no property of their 
own, deal very freely with that of the rich ; and the expenditure 
of this taxation is often beneficial to them by employment in pub- 
lic works and offices. In aristocratic governments, where the 
poor have no voice in the matter, they pay a portion of the ex- 
penses of the State ; in Democratic, where the rich are equally 
helpless, they pay all. This evil is less monstrous in America 
than it would be anywhere else ; because nearly every one pos- 
sesses some property, and there is great difficulty in attacking any 
description of it by taxation, without more or less touching that 
which interests the majority. The general result, however, is, 
that this is one of the most expensive governments in the world, 
in proportion to its obligations and establishments ; its redeeming 
point is, that a larger proportion of the sums paid, goes to the edu- 
cation and advantage of the poor. It is impossible to arrive at an 
exact estimate of what the expenses of government are in propor- 
tion to property and population. Taxes are paid to the Federal 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 127 

Government in customs duties ; to the States, counties, and town- 
ships by direct impost : what they all amount to no one knows ; 
there are no statistics to be obtained on the subject. Personal 
services also are rendered in drilling for the militia, and keeping 
roads and bridges in repair. 

The disposal of state funds is placed by the masses of the poor 
in the hands of individuals from among themselves. These offi- 
cers are more liable to the suspicion of corruption than if they 
were rich ; this tends to destroy confidence in them, and it reacts 
injuriously upon the people if they take it for granted that the 
man whom they have chosen and invested with power is dishonest. 
They look more mildly upon the dishonesty of less conspicuous 
individuals, and perhaps they have a secret desire to seek power 
themselves, that they may in their turn gain by the corruption of 
which they suspect others. Even when a thoroughly honest man 
gets into office, he is assailed with accusations or suspicions ; these 
suggest villany to him; and, at the same time, by injuring his 
self-respect, weaken his power of resisting the temptation. The 
chances are, that they make him, in the end, what they begin by 
unjustly suspecting him to be. 

The celebrated declaration of independence commences with 
the monstrous fallacy that " all men are equal," this is the real 
Constitution of America. Presidents, Senators, Representatives, 
are but officers of its administration, tolerably well adapted for the 
purpose. The edifice is fair enough, the foundation is false and 
rotten. The framers of the Constitution showed but the ingenu- 
ity of the madman; they reasoned and acted rightly, on a wrong 
principle. The chain of support is very good in itself, but the 
one great link to bind it to the rock of eternal truth is wanting. I 
recollect, when a child, being told a story of a certain Irishman. 
He and several other men were walking by a canal ; one of the 
party dropped his hat, and it rolled down into the water. The 
banks being very steep it was arranged that they should all join 
hands, the man at the top of the slope holding on by a post, the 
man at the bottom picking up the hat. The Irishman happened 
to be the uppermost. When the man below stretched out over 
the water to reach the hat, the others supporting him, their united 
weight proved fatiguing to our Hibernian, " I'm tired, boyg," 



128 HOCHELAGA; OR, 



said he "just hould on a bit while I rest," at the same time let- 
ting go his hold of the man next him : the whole string tumbled 
into the water. This strikes me as a homely illustration of the 
value of a chain of reasoning when the first link is deficient. 

If God has bestowed equal virtue and talent upon all, I readily 
admit that the viev/s of the great majority of this mass of virtue 
and talent will be all but certainly correct, and that therefore it 
is wise they should govern. If, however, God in his inscrutable 
wisdom has permitted t^^at in many human hearts should lurk the 
dark forms of envy, hatred, corruption, and sin — that the light of 
genius and wisdom should shine but on the feW' — if the millions 
who struggle in daily toil or traffic are unlikely to imbibe the lofty 
sentiments which may counteract the innate evil of the former, or 
have not the leisure and desire to supply by education a substitute 
for, or properly direct the latter — the principle is wrong, and dan- 
gerous as it is false. 

Some men, in the defence of pure democracy, are content to 
take lower ground ; they set aside the question of the majority 
governing aright, and assert its expediency. It is certain that all 
men are anxious for their own interest, and will use power, if 
committed to them, for the purpose of forwarding it. " Give the 
majority power, and their own interest will be advanced ; better 
theirs than that of the minority." They consider this the reali- 
zation of Bentham's view of the true object of government, " The 
greatest happiness to the greatest number." But it is very doubt- 
ful if the majority will be able to find out the best mode of for- 
warding their own interests : in their efforts to do this they may 
very probably injure themselves, and still more probably oppress 
the minority, whose interests will not only be disregarded, but 
treated with actual hostility. An instance in point is the present 
war-cry raised in the West ; it is well known that one of the 
objects is the injury which the wealthy men of the Atlantic cities 
must suffer ; they wish to distress them, as political enemies. 

Selfishness is one of the least lovely and one of the most uni- 
versal traits in the character of m.an ; in the individual, its offen- 
sive avowal and action is restrained to a certain extent by the 
usages of society, and the opinion of others. In this government, 
millions act upon it alone, unrestrained by shame or blame ; the 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 129 

secresy of the ballot box secures them from responsibility, even 
if they were not kept in countenance by overwhelming numbers. 
This selfish despotism, no matter how dark may be its tyranny, 
has not even the restraint which conscience imposes on the abso- 
lute monarch. The individual voter will not feel remorse or 
self-accusation, if the fiery Messages of the present President 
bring on the horrors of war, although himself directly the cause 
by electing the warlike attorney from Tennessee ; for the majority 
is but made up of individuals. 

This aggregate has neither reason nor pity to be appealed to ; 
the oppressed may plead their cause or beg for mercy, but it is in 
vain; the hideous Juggernaut, without ear or heart, pursues its 
course and crushes them under its wheels. 

It is an awful thing to entrust unlimited power to any man, 
even though he appear, humanly speaking, perfect in virtue and 
wisdom. Setting aside that you thereby surrender freedom, the 
best of earthly blessings, even he may have his moments of weak- 
ness or wickedness.- The man after God's own heart gave way — 
the wisest of the sons of men sank in sin ; from these human 
failings you may be a bitter sufferer. But there still is in this 
case the feelings and fears of the human heart to appeal to, and 
work upon. It is infinitely more awful to entrust unlimited power 
to a majority of the people : then there is no hope — no appeal : 
the tyranny of its executive is not restrained by the law, for it 
also makes the law — not by public opinion, for it wields that 
power too — not by open force, for it is itself the greatest force — 
not by the fear of secret vengeance, for the dagger or the cup 
of poison cannot hurt its millions. No man can become utterly, 
hopelessly a slave, but the citizen of a democracy. 

In absolute monarchies the tendency is to employ men who 
are more admirable for talent and dexterity in carryino- out the 
views of their master than for boldness and originality of thought 
and action. This is natural ; the sovereign power would suffer 
in its self-love and its influence, were any subject, by the force 
of his mind, to obtain a great influence over the minds of others ; 
it would be a sort of treason on his part to appropriate to himself 
a share of that which is claimed entirely by the despot. In such 
countries therefore the symptoms of boldness and originality pro- 
7* 



]30 HOCHELAGA; OR, 



bably are punished ; the punishment even of death may be in- 
flicted on the presumptuous offender. 

In the absolute democracy, the man who dares to be independ- 
ent is still more rarely seen ; he excites the jealousy of millions 
instead of the jealousy of one. They may not always take his 
life — as they did that of the editor of an unpopular newspaper at 
Baltimore in 1812 — but they hunt him down, they slay him 
socially ; his career is ended ; they blight his friendships, blast 
his hopes of honorable success. In the oppression of the abso- 
lute monarch, the man of independent mind may feel at least the 
pride of martyrdom ; he knows that the hearts of millions beat 
in sympathy with him ; he is for a time the hero of a grand 
drama ; the power which crushes him is wielded by a splendid 
enemy. He who suffers by the tyranny of the more numerous 
of two mobs is trampled on by the canting, narrow-minded hypo- 
crite, by the profligate oracle of a pothouse, and the ignorant 
swineherd of the back woods. One is torn by a lion, the other is 
gnawed to death by vermin. 

One day at dinner, at Saratoga, I met a man of very prepos- 
sessing appearance, with a good-natured and cheerful expression 
of countenance, and a neat and unpretending style of dress ; his 
manners and conversation bespoke him a gentleman. Pardon my 
nationality — -I thought he was an Englishman. When we left 
the dining-room we walked up and down for a little time under 
the verandah ; in the course of conversation I asked him if he 
had been long in the country. He evidently was not offended by 
the question, and answered that he was an American, but had 
been a good deal in Europe. I was curious to know what he 
would say about the institutions of his country to a stranger ; as 
he was evidently a man of education and refined tastes. When 
we entered on the subject, he looked carefully about him, to see 
if he could be overheard, and then gave his opinion. With ha- 
tred sincere as it was bitter did he denounce them ; he confessed 
that he could not enjoy social liberty ; that he dared not express 
his thoughts on such subjects to even his Intimate friends, not 
because they really differed from him, but because they did not 
venture to agree ; that he, and those who like him possessed cer- 
tain advantages in life, were ridden over by the meanest, lowest, 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 131 

most ignorant of their fellow-citizens. An hour afterwards, he 
was the centre of a circle of smoking and expectorating republi- 
cans, joining in a sort of chorus of self-gratulation on their mono- 
poly of liberty and their glorious institutions. This man, an 
individual, represented a class containing thousands. 

In an absolute monarchy, but very few can be courtiers or be 
corrupted by the arts of gaining favor ; in the pure democracy mil- 
lions must play the same humiliating part, or even a more 
wretched one. In the first, a man is not forced into it ; finding 
himself fitted for it, he puts himself forward as a pander to the 
disposer of favors. In the latter, he must play the courtier, for 
mere tolerance sake, and he must kiss the hand of the ignorant 
and the base ; the evil, therefore, instead of being confined to 
the hundreds of the court, is spread through the millions of the 
people. 

The result of any absolute power is to debase utterly its min- 
isters and its victims ; in a pure democracy the whole people are 
included under these heads ; the majority are the ministers, the 
minority the victims. 

In every state, township, and county, there exists a separate 
machinery by which this rule of the majority is worked ; that is 
to say, in each township there is a machinery to exercise the 
will of the majority in that township. We will take one example 
of this, to show the infinite abuses it allows of. The Van Rens- 
selaer family were acknowledged by the laws of the country to 
have certain rights over lands in the township of New York ; the 
elected authorities of these townships represented the will of the 
majority, who found these rights inconvenient, and refused to en- 
force them. The State Government was applied to ; it called 
out the militia of the neighborhood to subdue the refractory; they 
were, themselves the offenders, and of course would not come ; 
so the decrees of the law were mere waste paper, till — as I said 
in a former place — lives were lost ; then passions were aroused, 
and citizens of other townships made war upon the separate go- 
vernments of those who had shed the blood, and compelled them 
to submit ; but for that accident the corrupt will of the local 
majority in these townships would have been executed in spite 
of the law made by the general majority of the Union. 



J 32 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



The eternal principles of virtue and equity cannot be violated 
with impunity by an aggregate of millions of individuals, any 
more than by a single man ; to one as to the other, sooner or 
later, retribution must come. No one doubts that the unrestrained 
indulgence of our evil passions leads as certainly to ruin, as life 
leads to the grave. In the southern portion of this community, 
over the far horizon of the future rises a dark and ominous 
cloud ; flashes of forked lightning, though yet dim in the distance 
of time, are seen by the far-sighted eye ; the rolling of the thun- 
der, though now faint and almost inaudible, strikes its note of 
terror upon the watchful ear, and grows even nearer as time 
passes on. Already in some districts the moral is almost com- 
plete ; the unbridled sway of human passion has produced its 
unvarying result of tyrannical injustice : this has two develop- 
ments, though apparently their origin should be widely different; 
it is one and the same ; they seem to be the very extreme of con- 
tradiction, but are twins of an accursed mother, there they dwell 
side by side in hideous brotherhood — the wildest licence, and the 
darkest slavery. 

It appears to me that there are two conditions of society in 
which a pure democracy could exist without danger — either 
where all men are in a state of natural simplicity, or where all 
are thoroughly enlightened and virtuous. It is needless to say 
that these are conditions which the framers of constitutions will 
never find ; but I hold that democracy will be more dangerous in 
proportion as the conditions of society where it is applied recede 
from either of these two extremes. The conditions of the old 
countries of Europe are the mean between them, containing, from 
the infinite complication of class and interest, many men enlight- 
ened without being virtuous, others virtuous without being en- 
lightened, and the masses seeking but little beyond what their 
bodily wants require. France, at the end of the last century, 
will serve for an illustration. We must all see that hitherto, in 
the northern parts of the United States, democracy has not been 
so injurious in practice as it is in theory; therefore the conditions 
of thi^ part of the Union should approach one of the extremes 
which I have mentioned as the points of safety. Which of them ? 
I unhesitatingly ansv/er the first ; although at the same time I 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 133 

allow that they are one of the most enlightened nations of the 
world. The condition to which they owe their safety is simpli- 
city. They all consist of one class nearly equal in mental 
qualifications : their pursuit is a common one ; wealth is to them 
what the means of subsistence is to man in his primitive state — 
the only object. Boundless territory, and inexhaustible resources, 
place this wealth within the reach of all. When the savage has 
exhausted the game or fruits of one spot, he passes on to another; 
when the American finds the means of acquiring wealth cease to 
be plentiful in the East, he wanders away to seize on the unap- 
propriated riches of the West ; he knows he can attain his object 
there, so he will not remain behind to struggle for it with his 
fellow man. Over them, no strong, cold, disinterested, unap- 
proachable power is required to keep contending claims from 
clashing ; their field is so wide that they do not come in contact. 

The American, on his continent, is situated much as the pri- 
mitive man in his world ; he has no great rival power hovering 
on the border of his domains, threatening him with injury if he 
be not on his guard, so that he has no occasion to trust a portion 
of his liberty and strength to any power in exchange for his pro- 
tection. Among savages, if one oflfends, a neighbor inflicts a 
punishment; perhaps justly, perhaps not, but it raises no commo- 
tion in the community. The Americans do the same; the 
neighbors punish the offender ; sometimes by the forms of law, 
sometimes not, but the State is not disturbed by it. 

The fact is that this sort of democracy is but a state of nature ; 
and, as long as the conditions of the people of the northern States 
are unity of class, simplicity of interest, and freedom from ex- 
ternal difficulties, there will be no great disruption of society. 

The conditions of the southern States are widely and danger- 
ously different. There are two classes, separated from each other 
by a stronger barrier than ever European tyranny placed between 
lord and serf, separated so hopelessly that all agree amalgama- 
tion is impossible. Their interests are wide as the poles asun- 
der ; by depriving one class of everything that makes life a 
blessing, the means of enjoyment are supplied to the other. The 
terror of external danger hangs over them ; for it requires but 
little for the foe to cast the fire into their camp, and light the 



134 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



funeral piles from their own inflammable materials. For such a 
system of government this condition of society is therefore as 
bad or worse than that of the old countries of Europe, and I am 
convinced that for them it will prove to be the very worst that 
the enmity of a Machiavel could have suggested. 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 135 



CHAPTER X. 

Prospects of America. 

There are at this present moment the germs of three distinct na- 
tions in the United States, differing more widely from each other 
in feelings and in interest, tJ?an did England and the colonies at 
the time of the revolution. First, there is the sober North — 
moral, enlightened, industrious, prudent, peaceful, and commer- 
cial, where society has taken an established form ; the climate 
is severe, the niggard soil only rewards the careful husbandman, 
the industry of her people is the source of her wealth ; the weav- 
er's loom and the mechanic's skill are her mines of gold ; her 
traders find their way over the desert, her ships over the ocean ; 
wherever a mart is to be found, there will they be. Her sons 
are brave in war, adventurous in peace, in the revolution they 
bore the brunt of the fight ; since then, the greatness of America 
in peace is due to them. They are at all times the bone and 
sinew of tt\p Union, but peace is their most congenial condition ; 
in it, their great commerce is prosperous and safe ; in war it is 
threatened, if not destroyed. 

Next comes the turbulent West, with a fertility unexampled 
elsewhere, a climate which stimulates life and shortens its dura- 
tion ; all animal and vegetable productions shoot up, ripen, and 
wither in a breath, but still they spread over the land with won- 
derful rapidity. From the European kingdoms and from the At- 
lantic cities of America, thousands of restless and adventurous 
men pour like a fliood over these rich plains, and exuberant crops 
repay the clumsiest cultivation ; when the productive earth grows 
dull under this wasteful husbandry, the tide rolls still further away, 
the Indian and the wild forest animals yielding to its strength ; a 
few years change the wilderness to a populous State, its centre 
to a city. 



136 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



By far the greater part of the population of these countries are 
roving, energetic men, who merely till the land as a means of 
wealth, not as a settlement where their bones are to be laid, and 
their children to dwell after them. They have no stability or 
combination ; they come from all parts of the compass, a great, 
strong, surging sea, each wave an isolated being. All the uneasy 
spirits who crowd thither from other lands, in a few years either 
sink under the noisome vapors from the rich alluvial soil, or 
enjoy plenty from its produce ; each man acts for himself and 
wishes to govern for himself. The social conditions of all are 
nearly equal ; there is but little chance of any of those danger- 
ous organizations of society, which European states now, and the 
Atlantic states soon will present, for a century to come. There 
will be ample room for all to grow rich on the spoils of the West. 

This western country, I consider, will be the last stronghold of 
democracy in America. By this 1 pre-suppose that everywhere 
this form of government must be ultimately abandoned, that it is 
merely tolerated now — a temporary expedient for an infant state, 
merely an affair of time. I shall state my grounds for this sup- 
position presently. The conditions of the West are most fitted 
for these institutions, and these conditions are not likely to be 
altered for many years. 

Population has increased so much of late years in that direc- 
tion, that already the West holds the balance betweq^ the North 
and the South ; in half a century it will over-balance both together. 
Far away, by the shores of Lake Superior — where, but a little 
time ago, none but the lonely trapper ever reached, are now cities ; 
tens of thousands of men dig into rich mines or reap abundant 
crops, and in their steamers plough up the deep, pure waters 
hitherto undisturbed by man's approach. On branches of the 
" Father of Rivers," which have yet scarcely a name, populous 
settlements are spreading over the banks. The rapidity of the 
growth of population and power in this region has no parallel in 
the world's history. 

These people are confident in their strength ; they live in a per- 
petual invasion ; their great impulse expansion. They are reck- 
less of life, and but little accustomed to the restraints of law ; 
skill and courage are their capital ; their country is not a home. 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 137 

but a mere means of becoming affluent. The individual desires 
from day to day pass on to other and richer lands, in hopes of a yet 
more abundant return for his labor ; the aggregate of individuals 
desires the rich woods of Canada, the temperate shores of Oregon, 
and the fertile soil of California. They long to conquer them 
with the sword as they have conquered the Prairies with the 
plough ; aggression is their instinct, invasion their natural state. 

This western division appears to me by far the most important 
of the three, the one in which the mysterious and peculiar destiny 
of the New World is to be in the fullest degree developed. 

The south is the third of these divisions. It contains a popu- 
lation divided between the Anglo-Saxon and Negro races ! the 
first rather the more numerous at present ; but, taking a series 
of years, the latter has increased more rapidly than the former. 
It is well known that the whites hold the blacks in slavery, a bon- 
dage often gently enforced and willingly borne, but sometimes pro- 
ductive of the most diabolical cruelties that the mind of man has ever 
conceived. Altogether the effect of these conditions is, that the 
ruling race despise and yet fear their servants, and use every in- 
genuity to deprive them of strength, as a class, by withholding 
education, and legislating to prevent the possibility of their com- 
bining together. The great mass of these slaves are dark and 
degraded beings, but in one respect they still keep up to the level 
of humanity — they long to be free. It is known that by their own 
arms the attempt would be hopeless, for they are far inferior to 
the whites in mind and body. Some people think that nature 
has condemned them to this inferiority ; others that it is only a 
transient condition, caused by this state of slavery. Some local 
outbreaks have indeed occurred, where the tyranny of the master 
was greater than the patience of the slave ; they were for the 
moment successful — long enough to show how terrible is the 
vengeance for tlie pent-up wrongs of years ; but they soon sank 
under the irresistible power which they had provoked, and their 
awful fate holds out a warning to others. 

Their liberation is not to be effected by any effort of their own. 
Their masters are united, bound together by this bond of iniquity ; 
not only their wealth is supposed to depend upon their upholding 
slavery, but their very lives. Were these degraded beings to bo 



138 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



freed, and the sense of fear removed, no laws could restrain them ; 
the wrongs of generations would be brought to an account ; a 
" servile war " would ensue, aggravated in horrors by the differ- 
ence of race ; no peace, or truce, or compromise could end it ; 
one or the other must perish or be subdued. The negro cannot 
subdue the white man, therefore he must bo again a slave, or be 
freed by death from earthly bondage. So say those who defend 
the maintenance of this system in the South. 

The ruling class in this part of America are proud and quick- 
tempered men : disdaining labor, free and generous in expense, 
slow to acknowledge authority, contemptuous of inferiors, jealous 
of the interference of others, they carry their despotic republi- 
canism further than the other divisions. They are in themselves 
essentially an aristocracy, a privileged class. On several occa- 
sions these fiery spirits have objected to the influence of other 
States of the Union. For instance. South Carolina almost went 
to war with the Federal Government rather than submit to an ob- 
noxious commercial regulation. A member of this same State 
said in the House of Representatives at Washington, " If we 
catch an abolitionist in South Carolina we'll hang him without 
judge or jury." But, indeed, even their laws enable them to 
inflict a very severe punishment on such an offender. 

To retain the institution of slavery in the laws of the country 
is the great object of this division ; for this object it is necessary 
they should hold the preponderating influence in the government 
of the country. This they have generally accomplished, having 
supplied by far the greater number of presidents of the Union ; 
they have carried their point of annexing Texas as a slave-hold- 
ing State ; by forming an alliance with the West they have suc- 
ceeded in electing a president favorable to the free-trade so neces- 
sary to their interests ; forgetting that by his views on other subjects 
they run the risk of provoking war, so fatal to their commerce, 
and so dangerous to the existence of their cherished institution. 
This alliance is however but temporary ; it has no solid founda- 
tion ; the West loves not slavery, neither does the North. 

The voice of abolition, at first heard only in whispers, now 
speaks boldly out; they are weary of being the by-word of 
Christian nations for this crime ; their representatives are already 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 139 

numerous ; a few years hence they will be the most numerous ; 
as freedom spreads with civilisation to the West, the die will be 
cast and slavery be abolished by the Great Council of the Nation ; 
they will no more hesitate to sacrifice the planters of the South, 
than they now do to bring down the ruin of the merchants of the 
Atlantic cities. But this will not be tamely borne ; the South- 
erns will risk their lives and properties in a struggle, rather than 
surrender what they consider to be their protection. Then, who 
can tell the horrors that will ensue ! the blacks, urged by exter- 
nal promptings to rise for liberty, the furious courage and energy 
of the whites trampling them down, the assistance of the free 
States to the oppressed will drive the oppressors to desperation : 
their quick perception will tell them that their loose Republican 
organization cannot conduct a defence against such odds ; and 
the first popular military leader who has the glory of a success, 
will become dictator. This, I firmly believe, will be the end of 
the pure democracy ; many of us will live to see an absolute 
monarch reign over the Slave States of North America. 

In the North the conditions of the people are approaching to 
those of Europe. The mere productions of the earth have ceased 
to be their dependence ; their trading or manufacturing towns 
have grown into cities, their population is becoming divided into 
rich and poor ; the upper classes are becoming more enlight- 
ened and prosperous, the poor more ignorant and discontented. 
Increased civilisation brings on its weal and woe, its powers and 
its necessities ; as these proceed, it will be soon evident that the 
present State-of-nature Government is no longer suitable ; the 
masses will become turbulent, property will be assailed by those 
who want ; and the wealthy and their dependents will be ranged 
in its defence. Perhaps foreign wars may add to these difficul- 
ties, and to the temptations to " hero worship," always so strong 
in the human mind, but especially so in America. The result 
will probably be a monarchy, supported by a wealthy and pow- 
erful commercial and military aristocracy — and a certain separa- 
tion from the West. 

As these three divisions increase in population and in wealth 
the diverging lines of their interests will become more widely 
separated, doubtless so widely separated that the time is not far 



140 HOCHELAGA; OR, 



distant when they will even incur the monstrous evil of breaking 
up the Union, and providing each as much against the other as 
against foreign nations. The general political tendency of the 
present time is to increase the powers and isolation of the differ- 
ent States ; even the smallest grant of public money for works 
of defence or improvement is watched with jealous care by the 
districts not benefiting by it ; the balance of power is also a 
constant subject of anxiety ; the admission of Texas was on this 
principle originally opposed by many in the North. 

It is very plain that, in half a century, these divisions will each 
be strong enough to stand alone. The north, by that time, will 
have a larger population and commerce than England has now, 
and it is more than probable that it will also be willing to stand 
alone. There are two ties which at present act in keeping up the 
Union — the necessity of mutual support, and patriotism. The 
first will cease with their increasing strength ; in the second I 
have no great confidence, even at this present moment it is but an 
interested patriotism, and will cease with the interests which cause 
it. They have no inheritance of glory handed down to them 
throuo-h centuries ; with them is wanting the tie of afl'ection 
which binds the heart to the land where lie the ashes of the ho- 
nored ancestral dead — their mutual relations are those of found- 
lings to one another ; their love of country that of the Nabob for 
the pagoda tree. 

The want of pride in the Americans is made up for by the 
most astounding conceit ; they perpetually declare to each other 
their wisdom, virtue — in short perfection ; and will not allow 
even a share of this merit to other nations. They persuade them- 
selves that they are, as I have frequently heard them say, " a 
chosen people." But this shallow conceit is very easily wounded, 
and will probably be a great cause of ultimate dissension, for if 
one portion — still of course thinking themselves perfection — dis- 
agree permanently on any great principle with another portion,, 
who equally think themselves perfection, the chances are that 
they will find very great difficulty in convincing each other, or in 
compromising the matter under discussion. Neither the fiery 
and intelligent Southern, nor the sedate and sensible Northern, is 
likely to give way. 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 141 

I consider that the separation of this great country will inevi- 
tably take place, and that it is absolutely necessary for the peace 
and freedom of the world that it should. In half a century, if 
they remain united, they will be beyond doubt the most powerful 
nation of the earth. In the aggressive policy, certain in a great 
republic, will lie the danger of their strength. 

The extraordinary rapidity of events in America startles the 
observer ; ten years here corresponds to a hundred in older coun- 
tries, with respect to the changes which take place. Thirty years 
have altered the proportions of the House of Representatives in 
a most remarkable degree, the share of each State being depend- 
ent on its population. Ohio sends ten times as many members 
as Rhode Island, but to the Senate each sends two ; every year 
the disparity grows greater. When the interests or the passions 
of different states come into collision in the House of Represen- 
tatives, one party will enormously preponderate over the other, 
while, in the Senate, they may still be equal. I think it most 
probable that the first step to a dissolution of the Union will be a 
difference between the Senate and House of Representatives on 
some important point : a dead lock of the business of the Go- 
vernment must ensue, and in proportion to the interest of the 
matter in dispute, will be the determination of both parties not 
to yield. 

Even in the case of any one state feeling itself aggrieved, the 
consequences would be most disastrous to all ; in 1832 this very 
nearly occurred. As it was before mentioned, South Carolina 
protested against the Tariff, and actually armed to defend her 
nullification. The Federal Government made a sort of compro- 
mise, and that particular case of danger passed over ; but it is at 
any time liable to recur. Then at once arise the enormous ex- 
penses of revenue establishments along a great artificial bound- 
arj^, with a counterbalancing military establishment for each. 

These difficulties, the certain results of separation, may retard 
but cannot prevent it. If the nations of the earth were all aware 
of, and acted only for their real interests, the carnage and misery 
of war would be unknown ; mistaken views of interest will, 
however, sometimes preseiit themselves to the human mind. 

This probable separation of the great republic into distinct 



142 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



governments will not, I am convinced, interfere with her mission : 
let the States assume what combinations they may, their pro- 
gressive prosperity and civilisation is certain ; the whole of the 
North American continent, and not improbably the Southern also, 
will one day belong to the Anglo-Saxon race. The progress of 
Canada, under a totally different system of Government, has been 
quite as rapid as that of the States ; and the progress of the 
States when separated will no doubt continue the same : it will, 
however, be a happy thing for the world when their vast power 
ceases to be concentrated. 

People in England hear very little about America, care very lit- 
tle about her. Those who travel perhaps tell their friends on their 
return — whether from the North Pole or the Tropics, from the 
West Indies or China, that in all these places they have met with 
"Yankees" selling "notions," and scratching their names on 
trees and panes of glass. Men who write books — like myself — 
give much valuable information as to their chewing tobacco and 
sitting in almost impossible attitudes ; saying, indeed, at the same 
time that their trade and population are " somewhat considerable;" 
but still I think the just impression is not conveyed ; the details 
of character are most dwelt upon, and the grand features passed 
over as if every one knew them. I had read, I dare say, twenty 
books on America before I went thither, and the fortunate indi- 
vidual whom I now address will probably have read twenty-one ; 
most likely the effect will be the same as my own studies had 
upon me — that of giving him a quite inadequate idea of the 
subject. 

Most of the present generation among us have been brought up 
— and lived in the idea that England is supreme in the Congress 
of Nations. I am one of that numerous class — long may it be a 
numerous one ! — but I say with sorrow that a doubt crosses my 
mind, and something more than a doubt, that this giant son will 
soon tread on his parent's heels. The power of both increases 
rapidly in a geometric series, but with difTerent multipliers. The 

^Jlnerchant navy of the British islands has doubled since the war ; 

^ that of America has trebled — the population of the former has 
increased by one half in the same period ; the latter has doubled 
— the former has an immense superiority both by land and sea in 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 143 



war establishments, but the latter has the materiel for their forma- 
tion to any extent — the former has a colonial population alone of 
more than one hundred millions — more than the latter is likely to 
possess, altogether, for many years — but this vast number is 
made up of varied races, the great majority of them merely the 
subjects of military conquest, with no common bond of interest 
or feeling but that of the safety of submission and the sense of 
England's pre-eminence : the population of the latter is homo- 
geneous (with the exception of the portion of the negro race) — 
possessing Anglo-Saxon courage and perseverance, spurred on by 
the frantic energy given by republican institutions, rich in the 
endless resources of a country producing nearly everything ne- 
cessary for the use and luxury of man, assisted by the many 
wonderful means of internal communications, bestowed by nature 
or created by art. There is just enough of difference between 
our two nations to make their manners and institutions harmoni- 
ous, and just enough resemblance to give the Americans most of 
the elements of our strength. They already approach to a rivalry 
in commerce and manufactures : their soil and abundant territory 
have enabled them to beat us completely in agricultural produce. 
Our pursuits are so similar that I much fear sooner or later they 
must clash. 

We have not yet begun to regard them with sufficient atten- 
tion, but they watch us narrowly and jealously ; they view with 
indifference the progress of France and Russia ; their missions 
are different : but they think that every step of England is in the 
path of universal dominion. It is sometimes ludicrous to hear 
the contradictions which jealousy and dislike introduce into their 
speeches and writings. In the same page you will see " Her in- 
satiable grasping ambition to enslave the world," and then, that 
" She is no more able to harm the United States, than a baby in 
its nurse's arms." The Chairman of the Committee on Foreign 
Relations, in the Senate, spoke to that effect, indeed, I believe 
those very words, in one of the interminable debates on the Ore- 
gon question in February, 1846. 

They are irritated at our late successes in the settlement of 
affairs in the Peninsula, in Syria, China, and India j and they 
are very suspicious of tl^ views which they think may have h d 



lU HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



to our interference with the tyranny of Rosas in the River Plate. 
Our popular institutions are to them a source of uneasiness ; for 
they feel we there possess a strength of which they well know 
the value. The points of similarity between the two countries 
are much more likely to cause a rupture tiian the points of dif- 
ference. 

From policy, as well as from motives of Christianity, it is evi- 
dently right of England to avoid collision with America by every 
means consistent with national honor ; it would cause a vast in- 
convenience by stopping the supply of cotton to manufacturers, 
and deprive us of an extensive market for that produce, exposing 
our shipping to the enterprise and activity of American pri- 
vateers ; and it would involve besides, the enormous expense of 
a sufficient fleet to blockade the sea coasts of America, and to 
protect the great lakes, as well as the large body of militia and 
regular troops that v/ould be necessary for the defence of Canada. 
England has nothing to gain by war with the United States ; she 
may inflict enormous injury, nay, total destruction upon any part 
of them accessible to her steamers : but the people, the tyrant 
majority of the West, will rather rejoice at this, and will send out 
their turbulent thousands to threaten and revenge themselves upon 
the unprotected districts of Canada, while they remain secure in 
their inaccessible prairies. Money or credit they will have none; 
one perishes with their trade, the other does not exist. One of the 
ablest men in the Senate, Mr. Calhoun, declared in a speech de- 
livered to that body in March, 1846, that from the enormous rates 
of interest they would have to pay in raising money, the most 
successful war would leave the United States with a debt of a 
hundred and fifty millions sterling. The little bullion there is 
now in circulation in the United States would very soon find its 
way into the military chests of Canada, as the price of English 
government bills, — a security of investment too tempting for 
American patriotism to resist : then would ensue all the ruinous 
train of " assignats " and national bankruptcy. 

But the Americans have endless 7nateriel : their teeming corn- 
fields give them plenty wherewith to feed their soldiers, the looms 
of Lowell can supply clothing ; Penns5dvania is inexhaustible in 
iron and coal ; and whole states of unappropriated land may be 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 145 

given to reward their army. Any idea of permanent occupation 
by England of a part of the United States' territory is vain ; even 
were it possible, the immense establishment it would require, 
would be out of all proportion to the benefit to be derived from it. 
Any compulsory treaty of commerce, stipulated as the price of 
peace, would be disregarded the moment the fleets and armies 
were removed. 

Of the result of a war at present I have no doubt : the parsi- 
mony of Republican institutions has brought the naval and mili- 
tary establishments of America to the lowest ebb. The energy 
of democracy may, indeed, make up for many deficiencies ; but 
in such a war their people would be far from unanimous ; the 
hardships of the struggle would soon change the first enthusiasm, 
even among many of the most warlike, into coldness. They 
will find themselves worn out in the combat ao-ainst the streno-th 
of that country which has always progressed most rapidly in war, 
and which has never yet receded before a foreign foe. The rude 
waves of Democratic America will beat in vain on the rock of 
England's Aristocracy. 

Britain, though no longer in the spring of youth, is still in the 
prime and vigor of life : her people are not changed ; those re- 
sources are not diminished which once subsidized half the world; 
her sailors have not at any time since proved themselves unwor- 
thy of those who crowned her Queen of the Seas at Trafalgar — 
her soldiers, of the stubborn men who fought at Waterloo. 

Peace is the true conquering policy of America : by it she 
will, if she remain united, become tlie first in wealth and pros- 
perity in the family of nations ; the Rocky Mountains will yield 
a willing tribute of their mineral treasures to the peaceful invad- 
ers : and the fertile wilderness of the West, changed by the 
hand of industry into a garden, will smile gratefully upon its 
conquerors. 



PART II. 



146 HOCHELAGA: OR, 



CHAPTER XL 

General Remarks. 

1 WILL bear willing testimony to the, in many respects, excellent 
qualities of the Americans ; the traveller will meet with almost 
universal kindness ; not the mere civilities of an hour, or a ready 
answer, but, if he be worthy of it, he will receive active and con- 
siderate attention. A letter of introduction will prove not 
only a passport to the good offices of the person to whom 
it is addressed, but the means of extending acquaintance in 
other places, by further recommendation, so that everywhere 
he can make himself known. The Englishman is, I think, 
better received than the native of any other land, particu- 
larly in New England. The jealousy of his country is an 
affair of politics ; the regard for the individual is an affair of 
the feelings. The common ancestry, language, and faith, are 
bonds which events have loosened but not destroyed. Their en- 
lightened gentlemen speak with pride of the ancient glories of our 
race ; the name of Runnymede is sacred to them, the poetry of 
Shakspeare is music to their ears ; happy is the man who can 
trace his descent from some well-known family in the old 
country. 

Circumstances have thrown these tendencies rather back, but 
they still exist, and exercise an influence over the American 
mind. In the war of 1812, the New England States violently 
opposed the Federal Government, and two of them refused to send 
their complement of militia : at the present day their voice is 
raised for peace. In speeches at their public meetings, in their 
writings and conversation they accuse a party, and not the Eng- 
lish nation, of being the cause of their differences. I am con- 
vinced that, in spite of the political disputes and national difficul- 
ties which have existed, there is still a place left in the honest 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 147 



hearts of the people of New England, for a lurking, lingering, 
feeling of affection and respect, for that venerable land from 
which their pilgrim fathers sprung. 

At Boston, an Englishman will meet with many people, in 
whose society he will find himself quite at home : in their man- 
ners, conversation, or class, there is but little to remind him that 
he has crossed the Atlantic, and is in a foreign country ; indeed, 
I recollect having once almost started at the word " foreigner," 
being applied to me in a circle of people so like those of my own 
country. You find that conversation turns upon much the same 
subjects as in England ; that all the books you have read are 
also known to them, and the Constitution and history of your 
country ; that events in England are looked upon with almost 
equal interest by them ; and that all our public men have trans- 
atlantic fame. 

If you express a wish to see anything remarkable, facilities 
for doing so are at once proffered ; if you accept hospitality it is 
bestowed to the greatest extent. Full tolerance is always given 
for your opinions ; they may bo totally different from theirs, but 
they will be heard with courtesy and attention ; even thpugh dis- 
agreeable, they never interrupt you while speaking. Their 
manners are graceful and orderly, but they delight in a joke ; 
anger may be soothed, or goodfellowship strengthened among 
them by a piece of happy humor, more easily, perhaps, than 
among any other people ; they can even bear a hit at their own 
weaknesses, if the keenness of the wit redeem the severity of the 
criticism. They are liberal in their entertainments, and, indeed, 
sometimes disagreeably liberal in paying little joint expenses in- 
curred in sightseeing, at theatres, &c. 

The people of New England retain a good deal of the austere 
and solemn habits of their ancestors, even in their gaieties ; they 
keep very early hours, the waltz and polka find but little favor in 
their eyes ; the theatre is not so much frequented as elsewhere. 
Scientific lectures are a far more popular attraction. Two or 
three years ago there was an absolute enthusiasm for these con- 
trivances for uniting learning and amusement : ladies frequently 
went to two or three the same night, and a constant supply of 
lectures was indispensable for the fair listeners. The people of 



148 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



this grave city are not an exception to the general American 
character in their love of excitement ; but it is here more quietly- 
developed than in the South and West : " powerful preachers," 
mesmeric, and phrenological lecturers, are its ministers. 

Charitable and religious societies are very numerous, and 
liberally supported by all the different sects ; they are to them a 
common bond of union. The government of these bodies is to 
the people an object of ambition, supplying another sort of reward 
in public life to those who, perhaps, have been unsuccessful in 
seeking influence in the State. The collective strength of these 
societies is so great, that, if they were all brought to bear upon 
one point for any religious object, the chances are that they v/ould 
be successful. A union of this sort has alread}^ been proposed; 
to effect, by their joint efforts, the election of a religious govern- 
ment, without distinction of creed, but simply that its members 
should be well known to be religious men. By this means they 
hoped to throw all the influence of the ruling power into the scale 
of Christianity. The total annual income of these societies, 
raised solely by voluntary contributions, is at the present time 
little short of two millions sterling. Some of them are very 
useful, and admirably conducted. Wherever arrangement and 
conduct of aflairs are necessary, the Americans appear to excel 
all other people ; everything is done in the manner to which their 
business habits accustom them. The Temperance Society has 
grown to an enormous size, reckoning nearly a million and a 
half of members, and is in the main productive of great good ; 
the Americans are not prone to get drunk, but they are very 
prone to drink ; drams are swallowed by half the passengers of 
a stage-coach at each stopping place ; the bars of the hotels 
derive great profit from their skill in mixing all sorts of tempting 
draughts for winter and summer, in spite of the temperance 
movement. 

Though these associations generally tend to the improvement 
of morals and manners, and always are meant to do so, they 
sometimes rather overstep the bounds of prudence, and interfere 
a little too much with private life. For, occasionally, they are 
formed for purposes most laudable in themselves, but in their 
execution more likely to cause evil to the members, than good to 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 149 

the objects of their solicitude. Ladies frequently take a promi- 
nent part in these affairs, and are consequently brought in contact 
with people into the details of whose character it is unsuitable for 
them to inquire. I cannot but think that an intimate acquaintance 
with the state and causes of vice must have a demoralizing effect 
on all but the strongest minds. The enthusiastic desire to extend 
the utility of their society, sometimes urges them into scenes 
which cannot be witnessed without injury. 

Again, these associations strengthen the tyranny of public 
opinion. At their meetings any offender against the particular 
code of morality which they may set up, is liable to be named 
and condemned. The practice is, no doubt, a powerful assistant 
in checking the appearance of a vice, but I doubt if it cause the 
real conversion of a culprit. They will never of themselves be 
the cause of any great moral reform ; indeed they often substitute 
the fear of public opinion for the fear of God. 

Political associations are also very general in America ; they 
are almost the only weapon remaining for the weaker party to 
use in combat against the majority. When a minority feels 
itself strongly oppressed on any particular point, it often unites 
in a convention, receiving delegates from those who share their 
discontents in other places ; they make rules for self-government, 
draw up declarations, and, in short, establish, as it were, a sepa- 
rate and hostile community. In the political war which ensues, 
they issue their orders to their followers, and organize themselves 
in opposition. Sometimes they are so formidable and energetic, 
that this voluntary association, unsupported by the powers of the 
State, unrecognized by the Constitution, actually dictates terms 
to the majority. In the United States this unlimited power of 
association is less objectionable than it would be under any other 
form of government ; now, it can only be used as a check to a 
tyrant majority. The necessity of association shows them at 
once to be the weaker party, for the government of the country 
is the association of the stronger : the only weapons they can use 
are arguments, and if these can in the end prevail, they are, 
probably, well founded. 

In aristocratic countries, where the less powerful party is often 
far the more numerous, it is obvious that the organization of the 



150 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



masses into, as it were, a separate government, is fraught with 
great peril. Even under the British Government, liberalized 
though it has lately been, we have seen Repeal Associations and 
Chartist Societies, whose language and actions clearly show their 
dangerous objects. These men profess that they are not suffi- 
ciently represented in the legislation — that their interests are 
disregarded ; so, to give their complaints weight, they create a 
nation of their own within the nation, with a view of carrying 
on negotiations with the weight of an independent State. But I 
believe that, altogether, the good of this power of association 
much preponderates over the evil, and that, both with us and in 
America, it is a most valuable safeguard for our liberties : it be- 
comes formidable only when there is some real grievance to com- 
plain of, and then, within the limits of the law, it cannot be too 
strongly urged. 

From the constant habit of carrying on public business, Ame- 
ricans are astonishingly apt in organizing meetings. The day 
before landing at Boston, in one of the English mail steam- 
packets, while we were at luncheon in the saloon, one of the 
passengers stood up, and proposed that the party should form 
itself into a meeting, and that the Honorable Mr. So-and-So 
should take the chair : another seconded this motion, upon which 
Mr. So-and-So accepted the office, and requested our attention to 
the affairs about to be brought forward. In five minutes from 
the first words spoken, it was proposed and carried : — " That a 
piece of plate should be presented to the Captain of the ship, in 
token of our high sense of his attention and merits as a seaman ;" 
also, " That the Honorable Mr. What's-his-name be requested at 
dinner this day to deliver to the Captain an address, with the 
promise of the plate," which was to be got when we landed. 
The honorable gentleman did deliver an address and speech of 
a highly complimentary nature, such a one, indeed, as might 
have been appropriately delivered to Nelson, if he had survived 
Trafalgar. We were all making most painful efforts to restrain 
our laughter the whole time, and the Captain, who was a very 
good, plain kind of man, was quite bewildered when his Ameri- 
can panegyrist concluded with : — " This trifling token of the 
deep and lasting esteem and regard which we entertain for you 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 151 

as the accomplished sailer, and the finished gentleman." Luckily 
the loud applause with which the conclusion of a speech is 
usually hailed, drowned the uncontrollable bursts of laughter at 
the orator's expense. 

I have said elsewhere that the great majority of public men 
are lawyers. This results from their being a class which devotes 
itself to the improvement and strengthening of the mind, as a 
means of attaining wealth and distinction, so that they are usu- 
ally qualified to take the lead among their fellow citizens. Their 
habits of speaking in public are also highly favorable to success, 
giving them an immense advantage over an unpractised opponent. 
Lawyers wishing to bring themselves forward, can be found to 
advocate any extremes of opinion ; but generally they act as, per- 
haps, the most conservative body in the country, and even very 
dangerous measures are, in some degree, deprived of their per- 
nicious effects by passing through their hands. As the law is 
their profession and study, they are usually anxious to make it 
as much as possible, respected, and to encourage order, which is 
so indispensable to the law's supremacy. They have also gene- 
rally far better manners and a higher range of thought than the 
other classes, and this to no small extent influences their political 
characters. 

Appearing before their fellow-citizens as a class clothed with 
the authority of arbitrating among them, possessing a difficult 
and necessary science, to them unknown, these advantages ren- 
der the lawyer accustomed to lead and the people to follow. 
Though it cannot be supposed that lawyers have all a common 
interest, except that of supporting their profession, they have cer- 
tainly a similarity in their habits and tone of mind, tending to 
unite their views and objects, probably raising both above those 
of the people, and imbuing the lawyer with hatred and contempt 
for the blind and turbulent passions of the mob. The profession 
of the law in America has many rewards for the successful ; but 
there must always be a certain portion of candidates who fail ; 
from these ranks are usually recruited the advocates of ex- 
treme democratic measures, while from the prosperous and suc- 
cessful, the cause of stability and order draws its ablest support. 
ers. The lawyer belongs not naturally to the masses of the peo- 



]-y2 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



pie ; lie will therefore probably attack the enormous power and 
privileges which the masses possess. 

The Americans are not unaware of the influence wielded by 
this particular class ; but it is not feared by them, as its mem- 
bers can only apparently arrive at power by the people's choice, 
and are consequently interested in their service ; besides, they 
are indispensable, and their presence is perhaps, in a great 
measure, only tolerated by necessity. 

The Supreme Court of the United States is the only power 
completely independent of the popular will ; and, though all ac- 
knowledge its value and respect its influence, there is a great 
secret jealousy of its being beyond their reach, and it is to be 
feared that it will ultimately fall, as every other safeguard of 
rational liberty has already fallen. It has the very important 
power of declaring the acts of the Legislature unconstitutional, 
and protecting from their action any one who appeals to it. But 
it possesses no means of enforcing obedience to these decrees ; 
the Legislative power which it may oppose is armed with the 
Executive authority ; and it is not to be doubted that if the Su- 
preme Court were ever to oppose itself firmly to any popular 
pressure, it would at once be swept away. 

At first, nearly all the judges in the diflerent States were either 
appointed by the Executive or elected for life ; but the tendency 
has ever been to bring them more and more under the will of the 
majority ; and now, in many States, they are subject to frequent 
re-election, and, I believe in all, liable to be removed at the plea- 
sure of the Legislature, being thus altogether deprived of the 
most necessary qualification for the fit discharge of their judicial 
duties — that of independence. 

The system of the defence of the country by a militia force is 
very important as a political institution, though a source both of 
waste and weakness ; the enormous cost mentioned in another 
place proves its extravagance, and its inefficiency also has been 
frequently demonstrated. For instance, when Washington was 
taken by four thousand British troops, there were a hundred 
thousand militia combatants on paper, within a few days' march ; 
and, in the case of the Anti-renters in the State of New York, 
the local force was worse than useless. The unfortunate Ame- 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 153 



rican General, Hull, in his defence before the court-martial by 
which he was tried after his failure and surrender in Canada, 
attributed his misfortunes altogether to the inefficiency of the 
troops he commanded, stating that discipline and subordination 
were out of the question, the officers being elected by the soldiers, 
and more obeying than obeyed. They are however highly use- 
ful in defending their own neighborhood, when well posted and 
commanded, as they were at New Orleans ; but, for manoeuvres 
in the field or retaliatory invasion of a hostile country, they are 
not to be depended upon. 

There is no doubt that, after a time, they would make as good 
soldiers as any in the world, but it must always be a matter of 
the greatest difficulty to keep together men who have the inte- 
rests of their farms, or their business, probably going to ruin in 
their absence. The feeling of enthusiasm may carry them 
through a sudden effort with gallantry and success, but for a 
continuous struggle they are less" valuable than one-fourth of the 
number of regular, troops. 

In a political point of view, however, the establishment is of 
great importance and value ; it inspires the people with a sense 
of their patriotic duty, they feel a self-dependence as they muster 
on parade ; they know that to them is confided the sacred trust 
of defending their country, their hearths, and their families ; 
each individual feels that he is a part of the bulwarks of his na- 
tion. By the constant habit of electing their officers, they may 
perhaps render the soldier inefficient, but the citizen becomes 
more practised in his duties ; their drill brings them together for 
friendly intercourse, and for a season takes them from the wor- 
ship of mammon. But the great thing is that the country and 
laws, which they assemble as soldiers to defend, become precious 
in their sight. 

Their militia at present outnumbers the host of Xerxes, but 
this need not be at all alarming to foreign powers ; no Leoni- 
das will ever be required to stem their invading march, and 
any open field will serve for a Thermopylae. A standing army 
may appear very inconvenient to the Americans and injurious to 
the cause of freedom ; but in the first great war they undertake, 
its necessity will become evident. In the last collision between 
8* 



154 HOCHELAGA; OR, 



England and America, the colony of Canada, with four British 
regiments, was, for two years, all they had to overcome ; and in 
this they miserably failed ; not from any want of zeal or courage, 
but simply from ignorance and inexperience. However it may 
be the fashion to sneer at the soldier's trade, it cannot be so very 
readily learned, and Heaven defend me from being protected by 
amateurs in time of difficulty ! When the day of trial comes, 
there are punishments and disasters in store for the American 
militia, as great as were suffered by those who followed Generals 
Hull and Hampton in the last war. 

The style of oratory in America is very peculiar ; the speaker, 
to do him justice, generally aims at the very highest order, no 
matter what the occasion may be. In every case, whether pre- 
senting a snuff-box, or making a motion in the Senate, he will 
try to give importance to the subject by the splendor of the lan- 
guage. 

The sun, moon, and stars ; oceans, deserts, hurricanes, are all 
introduced as necessary illustrations, to convey to the individual 
who receives the snuff-box, the feelings of the givers; very likely 
the " Chosen People," " Mighty Republic," and " Boundless 
Empire," are also called into requisition. A speech usually con- 
cludes with a toast, if the meeting be a convivial one, or a senti- 
ment, on more solemn occasions, in which great matters are 
condensed into a few words. I heard an honorable gentleman — 
an American, once address a mixed assembly of English and of 
his countrymen at a sort of convivial dinner, on the subject of our 
present difficult relations ; his desire was peace, as was also that 
of the audience. The opportunity did not allow of any very long 
oration, but he made the most of it : he gave us a brief historical 
view of the world, from Adefm to tiie year 1845, a slight sketch 
of the march of intellect and the progress of society during this 
period, and of the struggle between the colonies and England, a 
succinct account of the advance of the former after the separation, 
a narrative of the speaker's adventures and opinions in an European 
tour, a comparative view of the naval and military power of the 
two countries, some interesting statistics relating to their trade, a 
feeling appeal to Providence that our harmonious relations might 
not be disturbed, and concluded with the following sentiment — 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 155 

" England, America, and Oregon ; may the latter be overwhelmed 
in the roaring billows of the Pacific, ere it cause the demon of 
discord to spread his crimson wing over the two former !" 

In the House of Representatives, this manner of fine speaking 
is sometimes carried to the most absurd extent. Another habit — 
that of speaking too long, has been lately put a stop to ; it had 
arrived at so great a pitch that the evil became intolerable ; an 
hour is now the limit, which, when exceeded, is always remon- 
strated against. This arrangement was very readily adopted; 
as only one could speak at a time, all the rest were obliged to 
remain as listeners ; each individual supposed that all his neigh- 
bors' speeches were of preposterous length, since by them he was 
kept so long from enlightening the assembly. In the Senate this 
rule has not been found necessary, for it is not customary to turn 
it into a school for practising elocution ; the fact is, that the 
Federal Legislation has but little to do, and time can generally 
be afforded for these flourishes ; particularly as very little atten- 
tion is paid to them, and they are merely given for the benefit of 
distant constituencies. 

Perhaps it is from the features of their country — the great rivers, 
the broad prairies, the huge forests — that they imbibe the habit 
of always describing in the superlative degree. In public speak- 
ing you rarely hear them make a grammatical error ; some of 
their words are pronounced differently from our habits of pro- 
nunciation, but you seldom hear an American word used on these 
occasions; whatever their weaknesses may be in private con- 
versation, in the way of " guessing" and " expecting," you will 
hear neither one nor the other in public. The present debates 
on the subject of the difficulties with England, elicit some of the 
most amusing contradictions and diversities of opinion in the 
argument. One honorable gentleman says, " We are about to 
provoke a war with the greatest power the sun ever shone on;" 
the next declares that " England only requires a spark to be 
applied to her own dangerous material, to blow the feeble and 
antiquated structure into the skes." Lest any of these valuable 
orations should be lost to the world, it is usual for the speakers to 
send their speeches, before they have been spoken, to the editor 
of the paper where they wish them to appear ; so that sometimes 



156 HOCHELAGA; OR, 



the voice has not ceased to echo, before the public out of doors are 
furnished with what has been said. 

" Fine writing" is also a great weakness of theirs ; if left to 
themselves, and uncorrupted by foreign taste, for which they 
have a great respect, they would prefer probably some tremen- 
dous " war article" in an obscure country paper, to the chaste 
and elegant simplicity of Washington Irving's works. As I said 
before, comparatively few men write books in America ; the 
lighter food of daily news is more suited to the national appetite. 
The number of English publications, and the rapidity with which 
they are brought out, is extraordinary ; they are generally printed 
with bad type, on wretched paper, and sold at a very low price ; 
all this time the poor English author, however he may be flattered 
by the publication of his work in another country, derives not the 
slightest benefit from it. Many of the best works by Americans 
have been published in London, as the property of the copyright 
is there much more valuable than in the United States. This 
seizing on the labor of the author's brain, and appropriating it as 
they do, appears to me highly reprehensible, and many of their 
wisest and best people desire a law of international copyright, on 
the principle of getting literature honestly, instead of cheaply, as 
by the present plan. There has always been a great majority 
against such a law hitherto : all acknowledge the existence of 
an injustice, but, as it is a profitable one, few wish to do away 
with it. 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 157 



CHAPTER XIL 

Territory of the United States — Mexico — The Indians. 

The territory of the United States presents more natural advan- 
tages than any other region of the earth. Its vast extent — now 
upwards of three millions of square miles, affords every variety 
of soil and climate, from the burning sun of the Tropics to the 
ice-blasts of the North. An enormous length of sea-coast, with 
convenient harbors, invites the commerce of Europe ; the Mis- 
sissippi and the great lakes open the resources of the far distant 
interior ; every variety of minerals for industrial purposes abounds 
in inexhaustible quantities ; the finest timber in the world stands 
ready for the woodman's labor ; numerous springs, of every 
variety of quality, and every medicinal virtue, are found on its 
surface. On the Pacific shore, the proximity to the rich countries 
of the Old World is an earnest of future wealth ; while, through 
the valleys of the Rocky Mountains, Nature has left an easy 
communication from the Atlantic States to the Western side. In 
the still untenanted wilderness of the interior, countless herds of 
buffalo, deer, and other animals of the chase, tempt the hunter to 
explore, and send him back enriched with their spoil. 

It is usual in description to divide this vast territory into three 
regions. The first lies between the Atlantic and the Alleghany 
Mountains ; the second between this tract and the Rocky Moun- 
tains ; the third extends to the Pacific Ocean. 

The Atlantic States are less favored by a fertile soil than the 
interior, but the indomitable energy of the British who settled 
them, has caused larger and more prosperous cities to rise on the 
inhospitable coast, and made it the abode of a numerous and 
wealthy population. Up to the close of the eighteenth century, 
but few settlers had crossed the Alleghanies ; it was known that 
there lay a boundless extent of fertile wilderness ready to be 



158 HOCHELAGA : OR, 



made the dwelling of man, but the then scanty population of the 
coast had abundant occupation and means of wealth near them ; 
and it was not till their increase diminished the facility of be- 
coming prosperous, that the great tide of emigration, now pro- 
ducing such astonishing results, began to flow. 

With wonderful rapidity the settlers, from hundreds, became 
thousands, from thousands, millions ; still the human stream con- 
tinues to pour on, year by year, over the mountains to the land 
of plenty, and still each new-comer finds its riches inexhaustible. 
As the flood of civilisation receives these constant accessions, it 
spreads widely over the land ; the first comers sell their cleared 
fields to those who follow, and then push forward for fresh con- 
quest over the wilderness. Every year, the frontier of cultivation 
advances, on an average, seventeen miles along its whole length ; 
still but little is covered, for thirteen hundred thousand square 
miles is its surface. The great Mississippi, " the father of 
rivers," drains the whole of this valley, for two thousand five 
hundred miles ; numbers of navigable rivers flow through the 
rich plains on either side, and pay it tribute. On the banks the 
vegetation is luxuriant beyond parallel : the soil is the accumu- 
lated riches of the growth and decay of thousands of years, 
formed on the alluvial deposits of the stream. 

But Nature has fixed the penalty of disease on those who reap 
these riches ; in the exuberant but swampy plains of the North- 
west the pale face and emaciated figure of the settler show how 
the slow fever and the withering ague have been at work ; and, 
in the fertile savannah of the South, pestilence and death are 
borne on every breeze. As the peopling of these districts pro- 
ceeds, a great improvement may be worked out by the draining 
of the soil, the felling of the forest, the training of the exuberant 
fertility, which now only raises its immense vegetation to die and 
poison the air in its decay. In this vast valley of the Mississippi 
lies the future dwelling of a greater people than the world has 
yet seen. 

The lands lying near the slopes of the mountains are broken 
and barren ; the deposits of alluvial soil are less abundant ; here 
and there the rough granite rock peeps through ; and, as you 
ascend, huge stones and sand cover the surface. Beyond 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 159 

the Rocky Mountains, extending to the Pacific, lie the territories 
before spoken of — Oregon and California. 

The northern portion of the Atlantic States offers apparently 
but few natural attractions. The coast is bleak and dangerous ; 
dreary sand-banks and rough rocks form its barrier ; the country 
is but little adorned by picturesque undulations ; sombre forests of 
the dark pine and the knotted oak cover its slopes. But this soil, 
though not of great fertility, has been found capable of producing 
all the necessaries of life, when aided by the industry of man. 
The difficulties to be overcome continue strength and energy to 
the inhabitants ; healthy toil has enriched them ; luxury and idle- 
ness find no place on this stern shore. 

On the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, the extreme south of this 
country, the sea is clear and tranquil ; under its calm waters the 
eye can trace an abundant vegetation ; corals enrich these inac- 
cessible fields of ocean, and beautiful fish wander through the 
forests of their depths. On the shore, flowering shrubs and trees 
of lovely foliage droop their leaves and dip their buds into the 
sea ; fruits of luscious and elsewhere unknown flavor, hang in 
boundless profusion ; blossoms and birds, each of wonderful bril- 
liancy and variety of color, lend their tints to the scene ; gaudy 
flies by day, and bright glow-worms by night, add to its beauty ; 
and every production of the earth grows with unparalleled rich- 
ness. 

But this lovely land, so teeming with life, is for the European 
a charnel-house ; the deadly fever is inhaled with the odor of the 
scented gale ; and few have been able to withstand the enervat- 
ing influence of this delicious but deceitful climate. Even the 
iron Anglo-Saxon race has yielded the noble duties of labor to 
slaves, and has lost, together with the habits of industry, many 
of its characteristic virtues. 

To the west of this southern portion of the United States lies a 
country which has long been neglected, a prey to anarchy and 
oppression. It is inhabited by a mixed race of Europeans, Indi- 
ans, and Negroes — a wretched, slavish population, combining the 
vices of all, unreaeemed by the virtues of any. Originally held 
by a simple and contented people, it became one of the rich 
prizes of the early Spanish conquerors. The mind does not 



160 HOCHELAGA; OR, 



know whether most to admire the wonderful courage of these 
invaders, or to denounce their villanous cruelties to the conquered. 
For many years, the avaricious, the profligate, and the desperate, 
poured in by thousands from Old Spain upon this devoted land, 
seized the produce of the country, drove the wretched inhabitants 
to labor in the mines, destroyed their cities and their chiefs, and 
left their country nothing but its name of Mexico. 

At the present time, nine millions of people, descendants of the 
oppressor and the oppressed, with some admixture of Africans, 
who have been at one time in bondage but are now free, inhabit 
this splendid country, a country ten times the extent of the Bri- 
tish Islands. 

The Rocky Mountains run through Mexico from north to 
south, and are in some places upwards of five thousand yards in 
heigJit, with summits covered by perpetual snows. The mines 
of gold and silver among these rugged hills are wonderfully produc- 
tive, and at a moderate height from the level of the sea. There 
are great varieties of climate and soil in this country ; immense 
steppes of rich land rise in some places from the shores of the 
pacific, or the tropical coasts of the Gulf of Mexico, to the cool 
and salubrious gorges of the rocky heights. A great portion of 
the land is of such extraordinary fertility, that the grain returns 
crops ten times greater in proportion than in England. The de- 
graded inhabitants receive these alms of Nature ; no effort is 
required to obtain food ; the delicious climate renders but little 
clothing necessary. With the habit and need of exertion, ceases 
the power, and but energy enough remains, for every now and 
then a bloody and objectless revolution. 

It is well known that, not long since, these Mexicans seized 
the opportunity of Spain's prostration, to throw off her yoke and 
set up a republic. They had none of the necessary qualities 
for the success of such a system, and miserable oppression and 
anarchy have been the results. First, a few American adven- 
turers succeeded in wresting Texas from this feeble grasp ; now 
Yucatan has declared itself independent, and the insidious pro- 
cess of annexation is making rapid progress in California. In 
short, they have already proved themselves incapable of self-go- 
vernment and self-defence. The authority of the law, during the 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. IGI 

time of Spanish supremacy, was at least in a measure respected ; 
justice was something more than a name, and the miserable 
country was not harassed every year by the bloody rise of some 
new tyrant. Already many of the down-trampled people sigh 
again for the comparative blessing of European rule, and for 
some protection from the grasping ambition of their neighbors of 
the United States. It would be the greatest benefit for this un- 
happy country, as well as the soundest policy for the European 
powers, to bring it back to the dominion of ^he Spanish monarchy, 
or to make it a kingdom — independent, but with its integrity 
guaranteed against any aggression, whether by conquest or un- 
der the mask of colonization as in Texas : — thus opposing a bar- 
rier to the depredating aggrandizement of the United States. 

The attempts at republican governments made by the descend- 
ants of the Peninsular races, have all proved failures; insurrec- 
tions, revolutions, and wars have multiplied, till the European 
politician has almost ceased to bewilder himself with their details, 
and the general reader hears the mention of some contemptible 
little republic for the first time when it becomes the scene of a 
tragedy of unusual horror. Brazil ofiers a much more grateful 
subject of contemplation ; there, under the guardianship of aristo- 
cratical institutions, society exhibits far greater stability and 
regularity ; industry prospers, trade flourishes ; the harbor of Rio 
Janeiro ranks among the first in the world for the quantity of its 
shipping and the value of its cargoes. At the same time the 
splendid country at the north of the River Plate is devastated 
by the wars of two miserable little states whose existence was 
scarcely known in Europe, till a handful of English and French 
sailors battered down the stronghold of the greater tyrant of the 
two. 

The regeneration of Mexico may appear a hopeless task, but at 
any rate her state cannot be worse than it is at present, and a 
constitutional monarchy may work good. It is, however, abso- 
lutely necessary for the European powers to preserve her from 
falling piecemeal into the hands of the Americans : they have 
marked her for their prey, but they must be disappointed ; if suc- 
cessful in this, no one could imagine that they would then cease 
from further aggression. 



162 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



In the last " President's Message" there appeared a paragraph 
not particularly called forth by anything at the moment, stating 
" That the United States will not permit the interference of any 
European power in the affairs of the American Continent;" so 
that in the event of their seizing upon Mexico, any remonstrance 
by cisatlantic powers will be looked upon by the Americans as 
ground for war. This sweeping prohibition falls rather heavily 
on England — at least it would do so if enforced, as she happens 
to possess a greater extent of territory on the continent than the 
United States, and may, through Canada at least, lay some claim 
to an interference in the affairs of the New World. Even France, 
as one of the great family of nations, considers that she has some 
interest in America, so the English and French guns at Parana 
spoke the answers from these powers to the President's prohibi- 
tory manifesto. 

When the benighted countries of Europe are rash enough to 
make this sort of mistake, the Americans should look with forgive- 
ness and pity upon it, for though they know perfectly well that 
they are the most powerful, enlightened, and irresistible people in 
" all creation," we have not had the advantage of the same edu- 
cation, or the study of the same versions of history ; we are still 
ignorant enough to doubt their supremacy, and even to hesitate 
to yield an immediate obedience to their President's mandates. 

The silly habit which they have acquired of speaking con- 
temptuously of the monarchical powers of Europe,- becomes mis- 
chievous when indulged in by those holding high official situa- 
tions. Not the least among the evils of such a class of men being 
raised to sudden power is, that they often carry with them the absurd 
and narrow-minded ideas of the strength and merits of other coun- 
tries, which were current among their former obscure and vulgar 
associates. I am happy to see, however, that the wise and 
respected body, the American Senate, did not confirm the declara- 
tion of the President as to the "Interference of European powers;" 
so that the " message" on the subject is but " words," and con- 
veys to the governments alluded to nothing more than the indi- 
vidual prohibition of the respectable but somewhat imperious 
citizen himself. The French Minister has courteously, but 
gravely and determinedly, noticed this paragraph, and seems but 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 163 

little inclined to acknowledge the authority assumed, while the 
lively and high-spirited Parisian press is greatly indignant at the 
assumption of this transatlantic potentate. At the moment of 
difficulty with England, it seems highly impolitic of the American 
authority to put forth an abstract principle of this nature, with n-o 
particular view or object of immediate benefit, followed up by no 
action, and highly irritating to friendly powers. 

The treatment of the Indian race in America by the Europeans, 
has generally been contemptuous and cruel : the Spaniards were 
apparently the most unmerciful to them, but the inhabitants of the 
United States have been the most faithless. Since the Union has 
become a nation, many treaties have been made with the Indians, 
but none respected ; year after year, some great extent of terri- 
tory is taken from them, and a paltry bribe given, instead, to the 
ignorant and corrupted chief. The people of the gentle and 
generous Pocahontas have perished from the land, and the mag- 
nanimous Mohicans are only remembered through the pages of a 
romance. The Indians who hover round the magnificent country 
of their fathers, now the "land of the stranger," are far and scat- 
tered, weak and helpless, but the inextinguishable pride of their 
race upholds their spirit; they know that to resist the European 
is vain, but they despise him still, hate him, and shun his civilisa- 
tion, although the manufactures and arms of the white men have 
become necessary to them. The animals of the chase recede 
constantly into the interior, they become fewer and more difficult 
of access ; the only resource of the Indian is thus failing. 

When the English settlers first landed in America, some of the 
tribes received them with kindness, others with a fierce hostility, 
but the fate of all was ultimately the same ; as the mysterious 
prophecies of their old men declared, " a destruction came from 
the rising sun." Wherever the axe of the settler rings in the 
forest, the wild animals leave for far distant haunts, and the 
Indian must follow them. When the Americans have thus driven 
away the only supply of food, they call the Red Men to a meet- 
ing, and explain that this land is no longer useful for the chase, 
that the pale faces will soon take it at any rate, while fur- 
ther away to the West there are boundless tracts ready to receive 
the Indians. At the same time are spread before them arms, 



164 HOCHELAGA; OR, 



clothing, and tinsel baubles, beads, and mirrors, to tempt them to 
the form of a sale; above all, the blinding and deadly fire-water 
decides the bargain. To obtain this poison, they will sacrifice 
lands and life itself. In this manner, hundreds of thousands 
of acres have been purchased for a few thousand dollars ; each 
sale accompanied by a treaty promising them protection in their 
remaining rights ; but in a few years the attack is renewed, and 
so on, till none remain. 

It seems to be ascertained that the Indian race cannot increase, 
or even exist, in contact with the Anglo-Saxon. Their ultimate 
fate must be to wander off, a wretched remnant, to the dreary 
regions of the Hudson's Bay territory, till misery ends in death. 
But a very short time in the world's history will have cleared the 
buffalo and the deer from the South and central districts 
of America by the spread of cultivation ; their only refuge will 
be the North, and there will be found the last of the aboriginal 
men and beasts of the New World. 

England has always been more strict in her dealings, and more 
considerate towards the Indians, than the Americans ; the conse- 
quence is, that her faith and credit stand much higher among 
them, and by the distant shores of the Great Western Lakes the 
wandering Indian holds sacred the honor of an Englishman, as 
does the Egyptian in the streets of Cairo to this day.* Many 
efforts have been made to civilize and save this doomed people ; 
all have proved vain, for civilisation cannot proceed without 
labor, and that they hate and regard as a degradation. There 
have been numberless instances of Indians being tolerably edu- 
cated and accustomed to civilized life, but almost invariably they 
have returned to the freedom and hardships of the forest as soon 
as opportunity offered. 

There are, indeed, settlements of the Cherokees and other 
tribes, which have exhibited some appearance of success and 
prosperity ; but, every now and then, a sw^ep of disease thins 
their numbers, and, besides, their race mingles with the European 
blood, till they too melt away. 

The great feature of the Indian character is pride. He consi- 
ders war and the chase as the only occupations worthy of a man. 
* The Crescent and the Cross, p. 37, Part I 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 165 

Now they have comparatively but scanty grounds whereon to 
hunt, and they are too weak for war, but still the pride remains 
indomitable — fatal. Even in the rare cases where they do make 
the effort to till the soil and enter upon a life of civilisation, the 
sense of inferiority to the white man in these arts drives them to 
despair. Their unskilful hands and simple ignorance soon leave 
them in the very lowest grade of social condition. Most of the 
necessaries of life must be purchased from the white man ; the 
scanty crops soon cease to supply the means ; they become 
miserably poor, having contracted the wants of civilisation with- 
out the power of satisfying them ; their pride revolts at being 
thus bowed down before the strange race ; and they either return 
to their life of savage freedom and hardship, or the fire-water 
renders them insensible to their misery and degradation. The 
lands which even their imperfect toil has in some measure made 
valuable, are sold to supply present wants, and they go forth lost 
and outcast to the wilderness. 

The few who struggle on against all these difficulties are looked 
upon but as troublesome aliens in the land ; the white population 
surges round them on every side ; year after year, the Indians 
decrease in number ; portions of their land pass from their 
hands, till, at length, no trace remains to show where they once 
dwelt. 

In all these invasions and aggressions, the States have sup- 
ported the white men, sometimes under the form of admitting the 
Indians to equality and receiving them as citizens, when of 
course they are instantly lost in the superiority of the European 
race. Many Americans do not scruple to assert in conversation 
that the final object of their system with regard to the Indians is 
their complete extirpation. The hard laws indeed allow them 
an alternative of wandering farther away to the West, into un- 
known tracts, or perishing miserably where they now are. The 
central government Ijas tried several times humanely to interfere 
for their protection, but its feeble efforts proved useless where the 
interests of the separate States were concerned. An attempt 
was made to secure them a retreat in the distant territory of 
Arkansas, but already the spread of white population has reached 
these wilds, and extends to the confines of Mexico ; while the 



IGG HOCKELAGA; OR, 



poor Indian emigrant from the East had to struggle even there 
with the fierce native tribes, who still retained the energy and 
courage of their savage state. When he obtained a footing he 
had no encouragement to till the land, for he knew that even this 
was but a temporary residence. 

Several times before, the American nation had given them 
solemn guarantees in treaties that they should never be disturbed 
in the possession of the lands then theirs ; but the turbulent and 
lawless settlers forced in everywhere among them and around 
them, till they could no longer remain. But now the tragedy is 
nearly over ; few and feeble, weary and hopeless, up the far dis- 
tant branches of the Arkansas they are hemmed in by the advanc- 
ing tide of civilisation on one side, by the jealous and hostile 
tribes of the interior on the other ; and they now rapidly seek 
their only refuge, whither the white man must soon follow, not to 
oppress them more, but to render an account of his misdeeds — 
the refuge of the grave. 

M. de Tocqueville quotes the following beautiful passage from 
the petition of the Cherokee Indians to Congress : — 

" By the will of our Father in Heaven, the Governor of the 
whole world, the red man of America has become small, and the 
white man great and renowned. When the ancestors of the peo- 
ple of these United States first came to the shores of America, 
they found the red man strong ; though he was ignorant and 
savage, yet he received them kindly, and gave them dry land to 
rest their weary feet. They met in peace, and shook hands in 
token of friendship. Whatever the white man wanted and asked 
of the Indian, the latter willingly gave. At that time the Indian 
was the lord, and the white man the suppliant ; but now the scene 
has changed. The strength of the red man lias become weak- 
ness. As his neighbors increased in numbers, his power became 
less and less, and now, of the many and powerful tribes who once 
covered these United States, only a few are to be seem — a few 
whom a sweeping pestilence has left. The Northern tribes, who 
were once so numerous and powerful, are now nearly extinct. 
Thus it has happened to the red men of America ; shall we, who 
are the remnant, share the same fate ? 

" The land on which we stand we have received as an heritage 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 3G7 

from our fathers, who possessed it from time immemorial, as a 
gift from our common Father in Heaven ; they bequeathed it to 
us, as their children, and we have sacredly kept it as containing 
the remains of our beloved men. This right of inheritance we 
have never ceded and never forfeited. Permit us to ask what 
better right can the people have to a country than the right of 
inheritance and of immemorial peaceful possession ? We know 
it is said of late by the State of Georgia and the Executive of the 
United States that we have forfeited that right ; but we think this 
is said gratuitously. At what time have we made the forfeit- 
ure ? what great crime have we committed whereby we must be 
for ever divested of our country and our rights ? 

" Was it when we were hostile to the United States, and took 
part with the King of Great Britain in the struggle for independ- 
ence ? If so, why was not this forfeiture declared in the first 
treaty of peace between the United States and our beloved men ? 
Why was not such an article as the following inserted in the 
treaty ? ' The United States give peace to the Cherokees, but for 
the part they took in the late war, declare them to be but tenants 
at will, to be removed when the convenience of the United States, 
within whose chartered limits they live, shall require it.' That 
was the proper time to assume such a position. But it was not 
thought of, nor would our fathers have agreed to any treaty whose 
tendency was to deprive them of their rights and their country." 

In Mexico and South America, where the Peninsular races 
once exercised such enormous barbarities upon the Indians, they 
have ultimately amalgamated with them, and the condition of the 
nation has been somewhat raised in the scale of civilisation. 
This result was rather from causes of inferiority in this European 
branch, than from any merit on their part ; their place above the 
Indian was not so high, that they could not mix and be confounded 
together. But the Anglo-Saxons, haughty, repulsive, contemptu- 
ous, will brook no equality — those with whom they mix must 
become slaves, or die. 

The negro lives in chains — the Indian dies in freedom. The 
instinct of territorial aggression prompts the Americans to intrude 
upon the rights of a power better able to defend them than the 
hapless Indians. They look upon our maritime provinces as part 



163 HOCHELAGA; OR, 



of the spoils of Canada, and speak with the same confidence of 
obtaining possession of all, as of any one of our transatlantic pos- 
sessions, whether in the North or in the West Indies. Their 
press inculcates this idea perpetually, " The American people 
will it, and it must be." Such is its tone ! 

Even many of the enlightened and well-informed among them 
have got into a habit of thinking that England's day is gone by ; 
that she is exhausted under the pressure of the chains of her in- 
stitutions, crushed by taxation, torn to pieces by internal discon- 
tent ; wasted by the poverty of her people, and passed from the 
vigor of manhood to the decrepitude of old age ; that her star 
already wanes before that of America, and that the date of their 
collision will be the date of England's ruin. Among other in- 
stances I heard a fiery young man speak on these subjects at a 
dinner-party at Boston : he was well born and educated, of good 
fortune, and belonged to the Whig, or, as we should call it. Con- 
servative party. The conversation turned on Oregon ; he 
thought our claims unfounded, and hoped that they would not be 
acknowledged by the American government, even at the cost of 
war. " Although," said he, " our commerce might suffer in the 
commencement, in the end England must be ruined : of course 
she could not hope to save her American colonies. The French 
are ready to seize the moment of her embarrassment; Ireland 
lonss for a chance of freedom ; the Chartists are organized in all 
the manufacturing districts ; the agricultural population starving ; 
Russia ready to pounce upon her Indian possessions." In short, 
he made the destruction so complete, that at length he was struck 
v/ith something of remorse, and added : — " But, poor old England ! 
I should be sorry if, after all, her own children were to trample 
her under foot." I give this, not as the opinion of an individual, 
but as the idea prevalent among many of all classes in the United 
States. 

From their versions of the history of our collisions on former 
occasions, they learn that England has always succumbed to their 
prowess. Among their children (as it used to be in England 
when a boy believed he could beat three French boys) they think 
that every American could " chaw up " three " Britishers." 
There is no doubt that it is to a certain extent politic to instil 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. VM 

these ideas into the mind by education ; for, if you can, as I said 
on a former occasion, convince people that they excel, they are 
likely to use their utmost exertions to prove the truth of your as- 
sertion. But, as occurs in every case where truth is deviated 
from, a vastly greater amount of evil is the certain ultimate re- 
sult. For instance, at the present time, when the cry from the 
West is war, one motive is, that they are convinced they can 
overpower us, and wrest from us our American possessions. 
" The American people will it." 1 have over and over again 
seen them looking affectionately and approvingly at the fortifica- 
tions of Quebec, as the future stronghold for their northern terri- 
tory ; observing its noble position, solid bastions, and skilfully 
drawn lines, with the careful eye of an heir presumptive. 

I soon found that it was quite useless to make any effort to per- 
suade my American friends to take a clearer view of the position 
of England, or to believe that her arm is not yet quite withered : 
it was vain. " All Englishmen say the same, they are blind to 
what is going on, behind the march of the age, brought up with 
bigoted notions." They think, in short, that we deserve a severe 
lesson, and that they are the people to give it us. All this sort 
of thing is said with the most perfect good feeling and friend- 
liness towards the individual whom they may be addressing, and 
with general expressions of regard to us as a people ; but what 
they call our dreadfully despotic and tyrannical system of govern- 
ment is the real object of their ignorant wrath. 



PART II. 



17C HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



CHAPTER XIII. 

Nova Scotia — New Brunswick — The Islands — Hudson's Bay. 

The last sight I visited at Boston, was the steam-packet which 
was to carry me to England, for the purpose of securing a berth ; 
being one of the latest applicants I got but an indifferent one. 
She was a splendid vessel ; even to a landsman's eye, it was evi- 
dent she would not disappoint those who had built her for strength 
and speed. Some dozen of the passengers were known to me, 
enough to form a very pleasant party, and many among the re- 
mainder were infinite sources of fun. There were Hamburgh 
Jews, Spaniards from the Havanna, Northerns and Southerns, 
Westerns, English, Canadians, and a i'ew who had no country in 
particular. One man was going to England on a speculation of 
selling Indian corn to the poor-law Unions ; another was the owner 
of a large importation of Yankee clocks, and was of course 
christened '•' Sam Slick ;" another was going to examine the last 
improvements in cotton-spinning ; and a family of four brothers 
and a sister were going to sing in England. When the gun was 
fired, as we started on our voyage, this family sang, with much 
feeling and effect, the " Farewell to New England." Their music 
was a great source of enjoyment to us on the voyage. Some of 
the Yankee songs were excellent, rich in native wit and the inimi- 
table "Down East" twang. They were children of a farmer in 
Massachusetts, had made some money by singing in their own 
country, and were then on their way to try their chance abroad. 
The sister was a pretty and very interesting girl, not more than 
sixteen years of age. I have not heard of them since they reach- 
ed England, but we all felt quite an interest in their success. I 
hope their voyage to Europe may not have proved too bold a spe- 
culation. 

There was also an " Abolitionist Lecturer" on board, a man of 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 171 

color, who had been a slave to his own father, and made his escape 
from the most cruel treatment. He had not received any educa- 
tion till after getting free, which was not very long ago, but ap- 
peared to be intelligent and well informed at this time. He was 
bound for England, to collect funds by his lectures for advancing 
the cause of Abolition in the United States. The Roman Catho- 
lic Bishop of Oregon and several Belgian priests were also among 
the passengers. 

We had a fair passage of thirty-six hours to Halifax. This is 
one of the finest harbors in the world, affording sufficient anchor- 
age and shelter for twice the number of ships in the British Navy. 
The entrance, when not obscured by fog, is so safe that the largest- 
sized ships need no other guide into it than their charts. There 
are several small islands in the channel, not interfering with its 
navigation, but assisting its defence. In winter, the ice very 
rarely closes its shelter, and on that account it is the great naval 
depot for our North American possessions. Three formidable 
forts protect the entrance. 

There are many splendid harbors on this coast, far more nume- 
rous than those of the United States, but as yet the scanty and 
indigent population have turned them to but little account. 

The town of Halifax is on a small peninsula, standing on 
a slope, which rises from the water's edge to the citadel ; this 
stronghold crowns the summit, and is now able to withstand any 
force likely to be brought against it. At first it was built by con- 
tract, and so badly, that most of it fell down ; but afterwards it 
was fully repaired and strengthened. A detachment of artillery 
and three regiments of the line are allotted to its defence. 

The streets of the town are wide and convenient, crossing each 
other at right angles ; its extent is nearly two miles in length by 
half a mile in breadth, and it contains about twenty thousand in- 
habitants. The wharves are well suited for the purposes of com- 
merce, and furnished with roomy warehouses, but, to say truth, 
the place has anything but a prosperous appearance, and but little 
trade or business is carried on. The houses are principally built 
of wood and poor-looking, but some of the private buildings are 
handsome and comfortable, and the " Provincial building " is one 
of the finest in North America. There are also several other 



172 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



creditable public buildings, and the dockyard is on a large scale, 
but I understand at present it is not well supplied or in good re- 
pair. 

When the French first settled in this country, they called it 
" Arcadie," They lived amicably with the Mic-Mac Indians, the 
principal of the aboriginal tribes, and taught them the vices, if 
not the virtues, of civilisation. They converted them indeed no- 
minally to Christianity, and turned this to account afterwards by 
telling them that the English, with whom they were at war, were 
the people who had crucified the " Saviour." These Indians 
were fierce and warlike, of tall stature and great activity, but 
these gifts availed them little ; the poison of the fire-water, and 
the white man's wars, wasted them away. Now, perhaps, there 
are about two thousand left, the poor remnant is humanely treated, 
and, in some instances, has made progress in civilisation ; but far 
the greater number still roam the forests in the chase, and dissi- 
pate the spoil in drunkenness and debauchery. 

There are still a number of the French in Arcadie, descend- 
ants of those who remained in the country after the English con- 
quest ; but by far the larger portion of the population at present 
is of the British race. The name of Nova Scotia was given 
to this province after its becoming an appanage of the English 
Crown. 

The Southern portion of the country is rocky and poor, the 
Northern shore far more fertile : the climate, though severe in 
winter and foggy at all times on the coast, is very favorable for 
the health of man and for vegetation. The peach and the grape 
ripen in the open air, and the labors of agriculture are now vigor- 
ously plied, and gratefully repaid. The mineral riches of this 
colony are very great ; good coal is found in inexhaustible quan- 
tities ; the fisheries are also mines of wealth. These resources 
have been as yet but little developed ; now, the increasing popu- 
lation and the greater attention paid in England to their interests 
is beginning to operate. Nova Scotia contains a population but 
little short of a hundred and eighty thousand : the area of the 
province is about fifteen thousand square miles. 

The form of colonial government is much the same as in Ca- 
nada. The people have always proved themselves loyal and 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 173 

faithful subjects of the British crown, particularly at the time 
of the Canadian troubles. 

A few words about the other British North American posses- 
sions may not be out of place before we leave these shores. 

New Brunswick lies between Canada and the Gulf of St. 
Lawrence to the north and east, the State of Maine to the west, 
and the Bay of Fundy opening into the Atlantic, to the south, 
and contains nearly thirty thousand square miles of extent. The 
surface of the country is much like that of Canada, except that 
a few prairies vary the monotony of the dark woods. There 
are many noble rivers well fitted for navigation ; the timber 
which is floated down by them to the sea, is as fine as in any 
part of the New World. The principal river, the Miramichi, 
pours riches and its waters into the Gulf of St. Lawrence. On 
its banks, in 1825, at the beginning of October, the woods, long 
parched up with the drought of an intensely hot summer, took 
fire. For some time the progress of the flames was slow, but on 
the 7th of the month there arose a dreadful tempest of thunder, 
lightning, and wind, which carried on the destruction with fright- 
ful rapidity ; for a hundred miles along the north bank of the 
river, every tree and house was destroyed ; Newcastle and 
Douglastown, two thriving villages, numbers of vessels, and more 
than five hundred people were burnt that day, and those who 
survived lost all their means of subsistence in the ruin of their 
dwellings and farms. Their fellow. subjects of England and 
America sent them forty thousand pounds to relieve their distress. 
The tracts of country near the Miramichi are very rich ; the in- 
terior, to the North-west, is but little known. Along the naviga- 
ble waters, the districts then burnt are now re-settled and more 
prosperous than ever. The villages have been replaced by 
handsome towns, and nearly two hundred and fifty vessels sail 
each year from them to the English shores, laden with noble 
timber. There are numerous lakes and streams in the central 
parts of this province, with a great extent of rich land, as yet 
unsubdued by the labor of man. On the sea-board there are 
various deep and safe bays, stored with vast quantities of fish. 

St. John's, the largest town of the province, is well situated, 
and has some fine public buildings ; it is improving rapidly, and 



174 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



contains about fifteen thousand people ; the harbor is very good, 
and the noble river of St. John, six hundred miles in length, 
flows by the walls, and is navigable up to Frederickton, the capi- 
tal, ninety miles distant, through a beautiful and in many parts 
fertile country. 

Frederickton is built chiefly of v/ood, with the exception of the 
public buildings ; the population is about seven thousand, and 
they are very prosperous. There are several other improving 
towns in different parts of the province. Here also mineral pro- 
ductions are in considerable quantity, coal and iron abundant, 
and some copper has been found ; there are also numerous mi- 
neral springs of great value ; but all these natural advantages 
are as yet turned to but little account. The climate is much 
the same as that of Nova Scotia, but less foggy. 

The population of New Brunswick is about a hundred and 
sixty thousand ; they are tall and stalwart, hardy woodsmen and 
bold fishers, loyal and faithful to the mother country. Their 
Colonial Government is like that of the other North American 
provinces, and like them their Parliament has its violent in- 
ternal political struggles. Within twenty years, the revenue 
has trebled ; the roads and other internal communications, and 
the education of the people, are now attracting due attention and 
receiving great improvement. 

This province formed a part of Nova Scotia till the year 1785, 
when Colonel Carleton was appointed its Governor as a separate 
administration. To his exemplary rule its progress in civilisa- 
tion is chiefly due ; for twenty years he devoted himself to its 
interests. The original settlers were nearly all men who had 
adhered to the royal cause in the rebellion of the United States, 
and to whom lands were given in this country : their high and 
loyal spirit has not weakened in their descendants. The most 
anxious period of the history of this province was when the 
boundary between it and the American State of Maine was in 
dispute ; its inhabitants more than once came in contact with 
their republican neighbors while cutting timber on the disputed 
territory. At length the difficult question was set at rest by the 
mission of Lord Ashburton, and the great struggle of principles- 
between the two countries deferred to some other occasion. 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 175 

There was a furious excitement in the Northern States of Ame- 
rica at this period (1842), and a strong tide ran against any con- 
cession to England ; but the very politic step of sending out a 
Plenipotentiary of high rank, and connected in America, flattered 
the angry passions to rest. The best terms consistent with peace 
were then no doubt made for England, but it has not unjustly 
been called a " capitulation :" it was a yielding of strongly 
grounded rights to the threat of war. It is well known that Lord 
Ashburton's settlement was at first indignantly rejected by the 
Eastern States of America. But their ablest man, perhaps the 
ablest statesman America has ever produced, the present Senator 
for Massachusetts, Mr. Webster, whose head was clear from pas- 
sion, and keen in the interests of his country, saw at a glance 
that a most advantageous offer had been made, and devoted his 
best powers to cause its acceptance. His difficulties were very 
great ; the men he had to deal with were the epitomes of the 
frantic and greedy mob, and for a considerable time he found 
them impracticable. 

Fortunately, however, during this delay, an old map of North 
America, formerly the property of Benjamin Franklin, was 
found : on this was marked the boundary settled in 1783, the 
close of the revolutionary war, with observations in his own hand- 
writing. This gave the exact division claimed by the English 
ever since. Armed with this important document he again ad- 
dressed his refractory countrymen, showing them the map, telling 
them that its contents would probably very soon transpire, and 
then they would be obliged to yield, in justice, the whole terri- 
tory in dispute ; but, if they concluded the treaty on Lord Ash- 
burton's offer, they would make a most advantageous bargain. 
This remonstrance was instantly successful • the arrangement 
was agreed upon, and they had the gratification of knowing that, 
though the full extent of their claims was not allowed, they had 
at least been able to get more than their due, and to circumvent 
England in the transaction. 

Although Mr. Webster displayed such consummate skill in 
this affair, and in a manner so congenial to the Yankee heart-r- 
strange to say it has been among the sovereign millions a great 
element of unpopularity for him ; however, he is consoled by the 



HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



estimation of his valuable services by the wealthy and enlightened 
of his fellow-citizens, who are very grateful to him, and show their 
gratitude in a manner more solid than mere popularity. He gave 
his country a most advantageous peace instead of a devastating 
war. 

After leaving Halifax, we passed the island of Cape Breton. 
At present, with several other smaller islands, it forms part of the 
government of Nova Scotia, from which it is divided by a narrow 
arm of the sea. Its surface is about two millions of acres. Se- 
bastian Cabot discovered it in 1497, but it remained unnoticed 
till the beginning of the eighteenth century, when a few French 
fishermen began to frequent its shores in summer, and in winter 
the fur-traders from Nova Scotia opened a small commerce with 
the Indians. In 1720, Louis XIV. of France colonized the island 
and erected strong fortifications at Louisburg, on the south east 
coast: the fisheries had become important, and these harbors 
were a great security to the trade of the Canadian settlements. 
Tlie Indians were friendly to the French, and assisted them in 
their wars with the English of Nova Scotia. 

In 1745, an expedition of the always brave, and then loyal, 
colonists of New England, numbering four thousand men, under 
General William Pepperall, besieged and took this stronghold of 
Louisburg in a very gallant manner ; ten years afterwards, how- 
ever, it was restored to the French by treaty. Again, in 1758, 
Admiral Boscawen and General Amherst retook it after some 
sharp fighting, and inflicted a severe injury on the French navy. 
On this occasion General Wolfe commanded a division, and 
showed himself worthy of being chosen for the glories of Quebec. 
Soon after the capture, the fortifications were razed, and have 
never since been rebuilt. 

This island attracted but little attention till after the separation 
of the colonies from England, when some of the expatriated loyal- 
ists settled there. In this century many hardy Scottish High- 
landers have increased the population. The shape of Cape 
Breton is very singular ; the outer lines are nearly those of a 
triangle, but indented with many harbors and numerous inlets. 
A great arm of the sea, entering opposite to Newfoundland, nearly 
divides it into two riiual parts, and almost joins the narrow pas- 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 177 

sage between this island and Nova Scotia. The neck of land 
separating these waters is not a mile broad, and will no doubt be 
cut through at no distant day, for the whole of this sea lake is 
navigable by large vessels, and this slight obstruction cannot long 
be allowed to check the free transit. Creeks and inlets from 
these central waters open up almost every nook in the island to 
the free access of shipping. There are also large fresh-water 
lakes, one, Lake Marguerite, twelve miles in diameter. 

Louisburg has an admirable harbor, but the entrance is nar- 
row ; its shores are now nearly desolate, and flocks of sheep graze 
peacefully over the ruins of the stronghold so hardly won ; to this 
day may be seen, under the pure waters, the wrecks of the large 
French ships sunk in the struggle. Where the warlike and 
prosperous town once stood, are half a dozen huts, giving shelter 
to a few fishermen of French descent. The north and west 
districts are the most fertile and thickly peopled, but their sea- 
board is bleak and dangerous. The various rocks and islands 
of the coasts of Cape Breton have been the cause of frequent and 
horrible disasters ; their full extent can never be ascertained, 
but it is known that, within thirty years, more than a hundred 
thousand tons of shipping, and two thousand human bodies, have 
strewn this stormy shore, from Sable island to the Gulf of St. 
Lawrence. Any one who has skirted these wild coasts in the 
dark and chilly winter nights, while the strong south-east wind 
rolls the waves of the great Atlantic against their rough barrier, 
cannot forget their terrors. 

In the north-eastern part of the island is a district of rich coal- 
beds, a hundred and twenty square miles in extent ; there is also 
a coal country in the west, but this last is not much known. In 
a small river flowing through an explored tract, the water is 
highly charged with gas ; women often make a small hole in the 
bank, fill it up with stones, and apply a light; a blaze immedi- 
ately springs up ; the water soon boils, and is available for their 
use in washing and other household purposes ; the fire would last 
for weeks, or months, if not extinguished. This phenomenon has 
only been observed since the opening of a large mine, whose out- 
burst of water flowed into the river. The island produces a vast 
quantity of valuable gypsum, of which the people of the United 
9* 



178 HOCHELAGA; OR, 



States purchase ship-loads every year. Nature has also supplied 
abundant salt-springs, and there is coal close at hand to complete 
their usefulness for the inexhaustible fisheries of the coast. Cop- 
per, iron, and lead are found in variety and plenty. The soil, 
except on the banks of the lakes and rivers, is light and poor, but 
a great extent of it is capable of cultivation ; the climate resem- 
bles that of Nova Scotia. Remains of animals of a great size 
have been found in the earth ; when the country was first settled 
moose and cariboo-deer were very numerous, but they have 
shared the fate of the Indians, and are now as rare as they are ; 
only about three hundred of the Mic-Macs remain there at this 
day. 

The population is about thirty-six thousand ; they export pro- 
visions to Newfoundland, and fish, timber, coal, and gypsum to 
other countries; their little trade increases rapidly. Sydney, 
the capital of the island, is near the entrance of the " Bras d'Or," 
or great central arm of the sea, built on a small promontory, and 
has a good harbor. The people of Cape Breton are a simple, 
honest, and virtuous race, well affected to Great Britain, but not 
so far advanced in social progress as their western neighbors. 
Schools are now spreading over the country, and as wealthy and 
adventurous people become better acquainted with the great re- 
sources of the island, the general prosperity increases. 

Prince Edward's Island lies in a great bay in the Gulf of St. 
Lawrence, formed by the northern outline of the three districts I 
have last spoken of. It is a hundred and forty miles in length, 
and thirty-four in breadth in the widest part. Northumberland 
Strait, in some places only nine miles wide, separates it from New 
Brunswick and Nova Scotia. The area of the island is about 
two thousand square miles. The features of this country are 
softer than those of its neighbors; there are no mountains, but 
gentle and fertile undulations, clothed to the water's edge with 
valuable woods and rich verdure. The north shore is very beau- 
tiful ; many cheerful villages and green clearings, with small 
lakes, shady harbors, and numerous streams, diversify its scenery. 
In the course of ages, the vast flood of the River St. Lawrence 
has worked indentations into every part of the coast : there is not 
a spot of this district more than seven or eight miles distant from 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 179 



some arm of the sea ; many of these afford shelter to large ships, 
driven by stress of weather into its crescent-shaped shore, while 
all are deep enough for the small vessels used in the coasting 
trade. 

On the south-east of the island stands Charlottetown, the capi- 
tal, at the confluence of three rivers, at the end of Hillsborough 
Bay. This is an excellent and well-defended harbor : the town 
is, as yet, but small ; it contains the public buildings of the 
island. The neighborhood only yields to Quebec in beauty 
among the scenes of British North America. Its shores are soft, 
and partly cleared ; the rivers wind gracefully through forests of 
varied foliage ; life is given to the picture by the cheerful town ; 
grandeur and variety by the blue and lofty mountains of Nova 
Scotia in the distance. 

This island was also discovered by Sebastian Cabot in 1497. 
The French first used it as a fishing station, and began to colonize 
it about the beginning of the eighteenth century. These settlers 
took part vigorously against the English in their endless wars in 
those countries. When the conquerors of Louisburg took posses- 
sion of this island of St. John, as it was then called, they found a 
number of their countrymen's scalps in the French Governor's 
house. At the end of the last century some Scottish emigrants 
found their way hither, and most of the present inhabitants are 
their descendants. The late Duke of Kent, when Governor of 
Nova Scotia, paid great attention to this island ; since his time it 
has improved very much, and its name, in honor of him, was 
changed to Prince Edward's Island. 

The land is admirably adapted for pastoral and agricultural 
purposes, but is denied the mineral wealth of the neighboring dis- 
tricts : sixty thousand people are scattered over its surface ; ten 
times the number would find abundant room and support. There 
are about eighty schools, and a proportionate number of churches. 
A Governor is appointed by the English crown, and the internal 
government is the same as in the sister colonies. Two or three 
newspapers are published in the island, and it is not without its 
mustard-pot storms of politics. The fisheries of these shores are 
of great value, but little advantage is taken of this resource. 
Many ships are built on the island, and sold to the neighboring 



JSO HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



colonies, but year by year its increasing trade requires a greater 
number for its own uses. Prince Edward's Island is more fa- 
vored in climate than any other part of North America : it has 
neither the extremes of heat and cold of Canada, nor the fogs of 
Nova Scotia and Cape Breton ; fevers and consumption are al- 
most unknown ; the air is dry and bracing ; the sickly and weak, 
under its salubrious influence, soon become healthy and robust : 
and the age of five score years is often reached in vigor of mind 
and body. This happy country furnishes plenty, but not wealth : 
the people are hospitable, moral, and contented. 

There is in this Western World yet another region, of vast 
size, belonging to the British crown ; it extends from the Labrador 
Coast to the Pacific, four thousand miles from east to west, and 
from Canada to the North Pole. In its untrodden solitudes, and 
among the eternal snows of its mountains, lie the mysterious 
sources of those vast rivers which intersect the plains of the 
Northern Continent. This dreary tract is called the Hudson's 
Bay Territory. A ridge of mountains runs some degrees to the 
north of, and parallel to the St. Lawrence River, as far as the 
sources of the Ottawa ; there it bends away to the north-west, 
till, above Lake Superior, it again inclines to the south, sending 
out a branch to the unknown regions of the north-west. About 
three thousand miles from the eastern shores of the continent, 
these branches meet the great line of the Rocky Mountains, run- 
ning from north to south. Numbers of large rivers flow from 
these ranges, some to the Gulf of Mexico, others into the Pacific; 
some into the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence, others into 
Hudson's Bay and the frozen oceans of the North. These moun- 
tains are nearly five hundred miles in breadth : to the east lies a 
marshy country where coral abounds ; next to this are immense 
plains or prairies ; and, still further east, a desert of rocks and 
sand, lakes and rivers, stretches away to an unknown distance. 
On the north, this dreary, trackless waste extends to the frozen 
seas. On the south-west of the " Barren Land" are the Great 
Bear and Slave Lakes, nearly as large as Lake Huron and Lake 
Michigan. The southern shores are rich and level, the waters 
dotted with islands, which are covered with dark woods, and well 
stocked with Indian deer. The Lake Athabasca, lying north- 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. ISl 

west of these, is of great length but very narrow ; the hardy ad- 
venturers who have reached its distant shores, describe them to 
be of great beauty ; two other extensive sheets of fresh water 
communicate with it. In this neighborhood, and between it and 
the great lakes of the St. Lawrence, are many fertile plains, fit 
for the habitations of millions of civilized men. 

Again, Lake Winnipeg fills up a portion of the remaining 
space towards the source of the St. Lawrence ; its length is two 
hundred and forty miles ; the breadth varies from ten to fifty. 
A portion of its waters flows into Lake Superior, through the 
Lake of the Woods ; the greater part, however, falls to the 
north-west, by large rivers, but little known, leading to Hudson's 
Bay. In all these vast lakes the northern shores are rocky, 
abrupt and barren, the southern, rich and level, as though the 
alluvial deposits of some great flood, flowing from the north-west 
to the south-east for many ages, had poured their riches upon 
them. 

The rivers which flow through this region are but little ex- 
plored, and but imperfect knowledge is yet obtained of their size 
and capabilities ; however, several of those falling into Hudson's 
Bay have been traced for more than two thousand miles, but their 
extreme sources man has not yet reached. 

In speaking of the Pacific coast of the Hudson's Bay Territory, 
we shall pass over that already described under the head of 
Oregon. The districts further north are called New Georgia, 
facing Vancouver's Island, or Nootka, the more familiar name. 
Here some mountains rise to a great height, white with eternal 
snows ; but the plains and valleys are fertile, and dotted with 
rich woods. Clear brooks wander among these undulations, and 
an exuberant vegetation shows the wealth of the soil, and the 
mildness of the climate ; all the trees of Europe flourish here, 
and grow to an enormous size. Winter spares the western coasts 
of the American continent ; the soft breezes of the Pacific temper 
its severity. 

For three hundred more miles of seaboard to the north, the 
country is called New Hanover ; its general characteristics are 
like those of the district last described, but rather more severe. 
New Cornwall extends thence to the Russian possessions : the 



1S2 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



climate and the productions show the approach to the Pole, but 
near the sea, the forests are still luxuriant. Many hot springs 
are here observed among the rocky hills. The numerous islands 
along the coast are covered with lofty pines, and have a compara- 
tively mild climate up to the Straits which separate the Old 
World from the New. Many mountainous islands, of rare and 
beautiful rock, form almost a connecting chain between the two 
promontories of Kamschatka and Alasca ; some of these spout up 
volcanic fires, others are bound in perpetual ice. 

From Behring's Straits along to the north-east are numerous 
other large and dreary islands, some nearly of the extent of Ire- 
land, but the snow, and rank, poor grasses are their only co- 
vering : beyond them is the bound of human enterprise. 

The northern shore of Hudson's Bay is the land of desolation ; 
lofty mountains of shattered rock, covered with ice which the sun 
has never conquered ; valleys where the deep drifts of snow have 
hidden their slopes since the Flood. In a few favored spots, dur- 
ing the brief and fiery summer, some stunted pines and coarse 
moss show that Nature is not dead, but sleeping. Lakes, swamps, 
and eternal solitudes, cover the interior. On the south-western 
shore are many symptoms of recent volcanic action : there are 
great seams of coal, iron, and copper. On the south shore, pota- 
toes and other vegetables have been produced, and corn would, 
probably, succeed, but has not yet been tried. Further in the 
interior, the productions are those of a milder climate than that 
of Lower Canada. On the coasts of the bay the winter is awful 
in its severity, and for six months all nature is imprisoned in ice 
and snow : at some of the settlements of the fur-traders, the ther- 
mometer in January is often down to fifty degrees below zero, 
tlie rivers and lakes are frozen to the bottom ; and even in the 
rooms inhabited by the traders, spirits have been known to freeze 
into a solid mass. When the withering north wind blows, it is 
almost beyond the power of man to bear it. The particles of ice 
borne on its frozen breath, are driven like poisoned arrows into 
the flesh, and cover it with sores. Notwithstanding their warm 
fur clothing and careful habits, the Europeans are often frost- 
bitten in these awful winters : the wretched natives frequently 
perish. Rocks are rent by the grasp of the frost, and, with a 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 183 



crash like the roar of artillery, burst into fragments, scattered to 
a great distance round. Often, for many days, the sun is hidden 
by dense masses of vapor, rising from the sea, and condensed by 
the cold on the coasts. In the severest times, false suns and 
moons throw their chill and ghastly glare over the white waste ; 
and from the inaccessible regions of the Pole, livid flashes illum- 
ine the dark skies with a sinister and mysterious light. 

For the three months of summer a more than tropical heat 
opens this dreary wilderness to the fearless sailors of England, 
but squalls and currents of terrible violence are to be braved in 
reaching it. Borne by the tides and winds, huge icebergs glide 
among these perilous seas, sometimes crushing the largest ships 
like nut-shells : in one month of one year, April, 1825, twenty- 
five vessels were lost in Melville Bay. 

Three distinct native races are condemned to inhabit this dis- 
mal country. All are on very friendly terms with the servants 
of the Hudson's Bay Company. They are expert in the chase, 
and gifted with wonderful endurance : their manners, mild and 
kind, and they are ■ faithful when any trust is reposed in them ; 
but when the accursed fire-water is within their reach, no tiger 
is more fierce and blood-thirsty. Very little can be said in fa- 
vor of their moral character, and they, too, are rapidly diminish- 
ing in number. The race sinks lower in the scale of humanity 
as they spread towards the north and east : there they hunt with 
the bow and arrow, and fish with nets made of thongs from the 
skins of beasts ; many eat their food raw, others seethe it in birch 
bark vessels, filled with water heated by hot stones. They are 
filthy and disgusting in their habits ; their horses and other do- 
mesticated brutes eat animal food ; grass and herbage, even in 
the summer, being very scanty. 

These Indians leave their dead to the carrion birds and to the 
wild beasts of the hills. When old age comes on, and they are 
helpless, their fate is to lie down and perish ; neither child nor 
friend will minister to their wants. In nearly all qualities of 
mind and body, they are a mean and wretched people. The 
Esquimaux dwell further to the north, and from time immemorial 
have warred against these Indians, who are stronger, and treat 
them with great barbarity ; these are a feeble and timorous race, 



184 HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



inhabiting chiefly the islands and peninsula, where they think 
themselves more safe from their dangerous neighbors. Of late 
years the English have made peace between them ; but the Es- 
quimaux do not yet dare to venture near the trading factories. 
In the summer a sloop visits their coast, and receives their furs 
in exchange for European goods. They are of a low and un- 
sightly figure ; their weapons clumsy and inefficient, but much 
ingenuity is displayed in some of their attempts at ornament. In 
winter they wander from lake to river, cutting holes in the ice, 
catching fish and eating it raw : their huts are low and wretched, 
covered with the skins of deer. Various tribes of these Esqui- 
maux are scattered through this vast northern region, and along 
the shores of the Polar sea. The moose, rein-deer, the buffalo, 
the bear, and many other animals, are here to be found, with 
nearly every bird which we have in England. Whales and seals 
frequent the neighboring waters in great numbers, with salmon, 
capelines, and many other dainty fish : in winter they seek some 
milder climate, and leave the wretched inhabitants to starvation. 
Stores are laid in against these times of famine, and some of the 
coarse herbage assists in the support of life. 

The first European that reached these seas was Henry Hudson, 
sent out in 1610, by the Russia Company, to seek the north-west 
passage. His crew mutinied, and left him, his son, and some 
jothers, to perish on the desolate shores. The same company sent 
out several other trading expeditions to these countries, and finally, 
in 1669, received a royal charter, giving them the exclusive pri- 
vilege of commerce and settlements in the whole of the coasts 
and districts within Hudson's Straits. They retain these rights 
up to the present day, employing a great quantity of shipping, 
and a number of adventurous men, who hunt among these vast 
plains and forests, and barter English goods with the tribes of the 
interior for their portion of the spoils of the chase. 

In the middle of the last century, two or three expeditions were 
sent to Hudson's Bay by the English government, but no impor- 
tant information was obtained ; and of late years we have all 
heard of the gallant, but hitherto unsuccessful attempts to disco- 
ver the north-west passage, made under the royal authority. 

The few settlements or factories round Hudson's Bay are at 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 1S5 

the mouths of rivers, and well fortified : they are Forts Church- 
ill, York, Albany, and Moose ; there are other smaller settlements 
in the interior, on the great rivers. After the French were dri- 
ven from Canada, a rival company was established to trade with 
the Indians from Montreal, called the North West Company. 
They entered these regions by the great Canadian lakes, built 
numerous forts near those of their older rival, invading their char- 
tered rights. For a great part of a century they were almost at 
open war ; several collisions took place between their people, and 
in one of these twenty-three lives were lost. Lately the interests 
cf these ancient rivals have been joined, to the great advantage 
of both ; and they are now so powerful a body as to defy all 
chance of successful competition. To their establishments in the 
Oregon Territory is due the superior strength of the English pow- 
er in those districts. Nearly all the Indian tribes are friendly 
and obedient to them, and as ready to defend them in war, as to 
serve them in peace. 

The British possessions, lying to the north and west of Canada, 
contain three million, seven hundred thousand square miles of 
land — a greater extent than the whole of the United States. Vast 
though it be, only a small part of this dominion can be inhabited 
by civilized man : from the remainder, the Desert and the Polar 
snows shut him out for ever. To the west, along the favored 
shores of the Pacific, millions upon millions of the human race 
could find abundant sustenance. 



IS) HOCHELAGA; OR, 



CHAPTER XIV. 

Conclusion. 

Upon the possessions of Quebec and Canada, depends that of 
the vast territory of Hudson's Bay. The Lower Provinces, New 
Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and the Islands, will probably be the 
last strongholds of England's power in the West. Till her naval 
superiority is lost, they are secure. It has lately been proposed by 
many loyal and enterprising men, to connect the whole of British 
America by a railroad ; from Halifax to Quebec, thence by Mon- 
treal, Kingston, and Toronto, to Amherstberg and the Far West. 
The latter part of the extension is not so very important at pre- 
sent : for, beyond London, the scanty population cannot claim 
more convenient means of transit than the great lakes afford. 
But the line from Halifax to Quebec is absolutely essential to the 
future possession of Canada. During the six months' winter, 
that colony would be thus kept open to the assistance of British 
troops ; and at no very distant time, perhaps, this may be a matter 
of importance. Any amount of force can be poured intothe harbor 
of Halifax, and in a couple of days they could man the ramparts 
of Quebec. With the few troops at present in Canada, a sudden 
winter irruption into the country by our republican neighbors, 
could only be met at a great disadvantage ; before the opening 
navigation allowed fleets to ascend the St. Lawrence, infinite mis- 
chief might have been done, and the few gallant regiments 
crushed in disastrous defeat ; but a great artery by which the 
vigor of England -could flow with rapid throb into the frozen 
heart of Canada, would, in a military point of view, secure the 
" brightest jewel in the British Crown " from the rude grasp of 
its rapacious neighbor. In the spring of the year 1847, by canals 
and the St. Lawrence, the great lakes will be opened to the ocean 
fleets of England ; thenceforth our sovereignty of their waters 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 187 

will be complete, and the war-steamers lying at Portsmouth or 
Woolwich can in a month open their thunders among the rocks 
of the Far West. Such is the importance of free communication 
in winter and summer along the course of the St. Lawrence, that 
upon it hinges the question whether Canada will stand or fall. 
But there are moral and commercial objects quite as valuable, to 
be gained by this great work. It will strengthen the intimacy 
between this splendid colony and the seat of government ; the 
emigrant from home, and the produce from the west, will then 
pass through British waters and over British territories only, 
without enriching the coffers of a foreign state. The Americans, 
with their great mercantile astuteness, are making every effort to 
divert the trade of Canada into their channels, and to make us 
in every way dependent on them for our communications. The 
Drawback Bill, by which the Customs' Duties on foreign goods 
are refunded on their passing on into our provinces, has already 
been attended with great success in obtaining for them a portion 
of our carrying trade, especially during the winter, when our 
great highway of the St. Lawrence is closed. 

A numerous population would soon spring up on the line of 
the railway, a great extent of fertile land be brought under culti- 
vation ; cheerful and prosperous settlements would replace the 
lonely forests on the southern shore of the St. Lawrence, while 
to the hundred thousand people who already dwell there, would 
be given the incalculable advantages of a market, and ready 
communication with the more highly civilized and enlightened 
inhabitants of the towns. The mail-bags and passengers would 
reach Quebec from London in eleven days ; a greater identity of 
feeling would be established between the colony and the mother 
country. I am certain that it would do more to secure the con- 
nection between the two than an army of twenty thousand men, 
and in ten years give an impulse of half a century's prosperity to 
Canada. 

The cost of the undertaking will be considerable — far beyond 
the reach of private enterprise in the colonies — three millions of 
money to complete it to Quebec. It is impossible that it can be 
done without effectual aid from the Imperial Government : the 
local legislatures are disposed to make efforts for its accomplish- 



188 HOCHELAGa ; OR, 



ment, but they will not be sufficient ; besides, it is obviously the 
duty and interest of the whole empire to assist it. The prospect, 
as a matter of more immediate return of profits, is very good ; a 
portion of land by the line of travel will of course be granted to 
the company, which, by the ready means of communication, will 
become instantly of* great value, and repay a large share of the 
expenses of construction. 

The engineering difficulties are very slight, but little greater 
than those to be overcome in the great military road which has 
been already surveyed by order of the Home Authorities. Surely 
the sum set apart for this latter work, and some in addition, may 
well be loaned for this infinitely more useful object ; one, both in 
peace and war, of such vast and vital interest. 

Of the importance to England of the Canadian provinces I have 
already spoken ; would that I could speak in a voice of thunder, 
to reach the ears of all our British people ! They should, indeed, 
prove the staflT of England's old age, and the stronghold of na- 
tional liberty in the New World. Sincerely do I hope that this 
certain means of increasing our national dependence and good will, 
may be heartily adopted. A number of gentlemen in these colonies 
have taken up the scheme in the best and noblest spirit ; as far as 
their powers go, they will contribute to its advancement. They 
have originated it ; many of them have already made sacrifices 
in the cause ; they hold out no exaggerated and over-tempting 
inducements, no promise of impossible profits, no hope of imme- 
diate return : they naturally seek and expect a reasonable return ; 
it could not be supposed they would sacrifice altogether their own 
interests ; but, loyal to the Crown, faithful to England, and true 
to their native soil, their high and honest patriotism is a motive 
of action stronger than the mere vulgar thirst of gain. England 
should cherish these sentiments, and hold out the liberal hand of 
aid and encouragement to such men, engaged in such a work. 
On the co-operation of England all'will depend — without her help 
the plan is impracticable. 

The capabilities of the maritime provinces deserve deep atten- 
tion. These contain a surface of forty-eight thousand square 
miles — more than half that of the British islands : and are able to 
maintain on the produce of their soil, a population of six millions. 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 189 

The climate is highly favorable to health, and to the growth of 
nearly every tree and vegetable of the mother country. The 
harbors and internal water-communications are far more conve- 
nient by nature than those of any other country in the world. 
Numbers of rapid streams supply power a hundred times greater 
than the mills of Manchester ; the mineral wealth in some districts 
equals that of Staffordshire and Durham ; great forests of magnifi- 
cent timber supply the materials for buildings, machinery, and for 
ships to bear the commerce to distant lands ; the riches of the coast 
fisheries are another element of prosperity. They are, besides 
this, highly favored in their position ; between the old countries 
of Europe, and the new but maturer States of the American 
Union, the great and rising districts of the valley of the St. Law- 
rence, the frozen regions of Hudson's Bay, and the dreary shores 
of Labrador — rich in furs and oil — and the beautiful but pesti- 
lential islands of the Caribbean Sea, with their, abundant tropical 
productions. The inhabitants, too, of that race whose destiny 
seems indeed a wide dominion, whose step of conquest — whether 
with sword or plough, whether against the feeble millions of 
China, or the warlike tribes of Northern India, the rich prairies 
along the Western Lakes, or the fertile regions of Southern 
Africa, the vast continent of Australia or the delightful islands 
of the South Seas — presses on with irresistible force. 

This people start as it were into political life with the sober 
experience of centuries of freedom, with education widely diffus- 
ed, the church established as an anchor of religious faith, and yet 
with a perfect freedom of opinion and a generous tolerance : 
governed by the inestimable institutions and laws which the ex- 
perience of our favored land has proved to be so well suited to 
her sons ; their numbers rapidly recruited from the adventurous 
and energetic spirits of our population, their early efforts nursed 
by the wealth and commerce of the older country, they must 
occupy an important place in the future history of the world. 

Perhaps, at no very distant time — but long after he who now 
writes, and he who reads, shall have passed away — a great and 
industrious people will fill these lands. Cape Breton will be the 
seat of manufactures; where its dark forests now hide the deep 
veins of coal and iron, will rise the Birminghams and Wolver- 



190 HOCHELAGA : OP, 



hamptons of the New World, and the waters of the " Golden 
Arm " be ploughed by steamers as numerous as those of the 
Mersey at this day. The rich interval of New Brunswick will 
supply abundant corn for the use of this population, and the soft 
pastoral undulations of Prince Edward's Island yield them plenti- 
fully, sheep and cattle. The coal mines of Nova Scotia afford it 
a similar prospect, and railways will develope the varied resources 
of its mineral and agricultural wealtli. The inexhaustible sup- 
plies of fish from its waters will be borne into the interior to add 
to its luxury and wealth ; and thence, grain and manufactures to 
the fishers and traders of the coast. Steamers will pry into every 
nook and bay along the shores, and from their vivifying touch 
prosperous towns will spring up on each accessible point. As 
the forest falls before the axe, and the labor of man dries up the 
morasses and tills the wastes of the interior, the heavens will re- 
flect the softened face of the earth, the frosts of winter relax their 
iron hold, and the gloomy curtains of the mist rise for ever from 
off the rocky shore. 

These are no vague speculations, no mere probabilities, they 
are as certain as any human prospect can be. The experience 
of two hundred years in British colonization not ranging as much 
as the crops of different seasons, the general progress is reduced 
to an absolute certainty. In a particular ratio the populations 
have increased, from the first men who trod these western shores 
to the millions of to-day. The general proportion of increase in 
these lower provinces since any census has been obtained, is that 
of doubling in twenty-five years ; by this rate — to which there is 
scarcely an exception on the American Continent — in a hundred 
years they will contain more than six millions of souls. It is 
therefore of vast moment now to the Christian, the philanthropist, 
and the politician, to guard the infancy of such a people, to 
watch with paternal care the development of national character, 
to foster feelings of affection and respect for the mother country, 
to observe with untiring eye the progress of religion and educa- 
tion. 

There is no doubt or anxiety with respect to the progress to be 
made by these provinces in material prosperity ; as certainly as 
years roll on they will become rich and populous. But on the 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 191 

events of the present day their moral progress must mainly 
depend. England is never backward in the cause of Chris- 
tianity and enlightenment, but sometimes, perhaps, injudicious 
in her exertions. The noble courage and uncomplaining devo- 
tion of many of her sons among the dark and hopeless millions 
of the heathen, must ever be a source of pride, and a high ex- 
ample ; but, had half these sacrifices been made in the wilds of 
North America, to retain the distant settlers in the faith and 
habits of their fathers, the result would have been infinitely more 
important. 

I am rejoiced to say that lately much has been done, and that 
much more is doing ; that the " Spirit of the Age " now influ- 
encing the brightest minds and warmest hearts in Church and 
State — no matter by what nickname it may be called — purifies 
the blood which throbs in the heart of England's empire, and 
already the vigorous and healthy current reaches the most distant 
and the most humble portion of her wide dominions. 

The Church of England is at present that of only one-fourth 
of the population of these provinces, but by far the most enlight- 
ened and wealthy portion of the community belong to it, and it 
is the established church. Of late years, the class of men ob- 
taining orders is very much improved, and their supply better 
adapted to the necessities of the congregations. The Bishop of 
Nova Scotia, who resides at Halifax, exercises ecclesiastical ju- 
risdiction over them all except New Brunswick, which has one 
of its own. The Scottish Communion has the greatest number 
of members ; the Roman Catholics are about the seventh part of 
the population. 



A voyage across the Atlantic in the autumn, on board a 
steamer, does not afford much variety of incident. Our prospect 
of pleasant society was spoiled by the effect of the sea, calm 
though it was, upon the health of some of our fellow-passengers. 
The first week was intensely dull, a little concert on the deck 
and a rubber of whist, our only resources ; there were indeed a 
few books, but of course they were not those we wanted, and 
besides in no place is one so idle as on board a packet-ship. 



VJ2 HOCHELAGA; OR, 



There is always some little interruption, some slight rut in the 
smooth road of monotony, to disturb the attention, and to prevent 
you from sitting down quietly to read. 

One morning, earlier than the usual time of rising, the steward 
awakened us with the news that icebergs were close at hand. 
This was charming intelligence, for so late in the season they 
are but rarely met with ; we were all soon on deck, and for a 
worthy object. One was a grand fellow, with two great domes, 
each as large as that of St. Paul's : the lower part was like 
frosted silver. Where the heat of the sun had melted the sur- 
face, and it had frozen again, in its gradual decay it had assumed 
all sorts of angular and fantastic shapes, reflecting from its green, 
transparent mass thousands of prismatic colors; while, below, 
the gentle swell dallied with its clifF-like sides. The action of 
the waves had worn away a great portion of the base over the 
water, into deep nooks and caves, destroying the balance o-f the 
mass ; while we were passing, the crisis of this tedious process 
chanced to arrive ; the huge white rock tottered for a moment, 
then fell into the calm sea, with a sound like the roar of a thou- 
sand cannon ; the spray rose to a great height into the air, and 
large waves rolled round, spreading their wide circles over the 
ocean, each ring diminishing till at length they sank to rest. 
When the spray had fallen again, the glittering domes had 
vanished, and a long, low island of rough snow and ice lay on 
the surface of the water. 

There is something impressive and dismal in the fate of these 
cold and lonely wanderers of the deep. They break loose by 
some great effort of nature from the shores and rivers of the un- 
known regions of the north, where, for centuries perhaps, they 
have been accumulating, and commence their dreary voyage, 
which has no end but in annihilation. For years they may 
wander in the Polar Sea, till some strong gale or current bears 
them past its iron limits ; then, by the predominance of winds 
and waters to the south, they float past the desolate coasts of 
Newfoundland. Already the summer sun makes sad havoc in 
their strength, melting their lofty heights ; but each night's frost 
binds up what is left, and still on, on, glides the great mass, 
slowly, solemnly. You cannot perceive that it stirs, the greatest 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 193 

storm does not rock it, the keenest eye cannot discover a motion, 
but, moment by moment, day by day, it passes to the south, 
where it wastes away and vanishes at last. 

In June and July they are most numerous in these seas, and 
there is often much danger from their neighborhood in the dark 
moonless nights ; but the thermometer, if consulted, will always 
indicate their approach ; it fell eight degrees when we neared 
the iceberg which I have now described, and the cold was sensi- 
bly felt. 

As the vessel became lighter, from the consumption of the 
coal, her speed increased, till we gained nearly three hundred 
miles a day. In an incredibly short time we had a view of the 
blue mountains of Ireland. There are few people in these days 
of general travel who have not enjoyed at some period of their 
lives the rapture of the first sight of the British Isles after a long 
absence from their beloved shores ; in that distant view the pic- 
ture is filled up with happy memories and joyful anticipations. 
As you approach nearer and the hills and valleys are distinguished, 
with their dark groves and rich verdure, the ruined town, the 
humble cottage, the peaceful village, and the tall spire " pointing 
up to Heaven ;" the days of absence seem but a moment, and 
the recollection of parting grief yields to the joyful hope of the 
approaching meeting. 

It was announced to us that the next morning we should be at 
Liverpool. On the concluding day of the voyage it is usual to 
prolong the dinner hour beyond the ordinary time ; a quantity 
of wine is put upon the table, and the gifted in song and eloquence 
edify the company by the exercise of their powers. The sea, by 
this time, has lost its horrors to even the most tender susceptibili- 
ties ; every one is in high good-humor and excitement at the 
prospect of a speedy release from their confinement, and it is 
generally made the occasion of great rejoicing. Very flattering 
things are said of the qualities of the ship and the skill and vir- 
tues of the captain, of the vast advantages of such speedy com- 
munication between the two greatest nations in the world — which 
is always a highly popular observation. Then the captain " is quite 
at a loss for words to express the deep sense he entertains of the 
honor conferred on himself and his ship by the gentleman who 



194 HOCHELAGA; OR, 



has just now so eloquently spoken." As soon as these agreeable 
subjects are exhausted, the passengers find it agreeable to walk 
on the deck a little and cool their heads, heated with champagne 
and eloquence. 

At this unfortunate time, on the occasion I speak of, the negro 
abolition preacher made his appearance on the quarter-deck and 
commenced a lecture on the evils of slavery, and the stain fixed 
by it on the character of the United States, using no measured 
terms of condemnation of the free and enlightened community. 
A large circle of his supporters gathered round him to hear his 
speech ; those who differed from him also listened with great pa- 
tience for some time, when, I must say, he became very abusive 
to Americans in general, trusting to being countenanced by a 
majority of the audience. A New Orleans man, the master of 
a ship in the China trade and who had been, during the greater 
part of the voyage, and was more particularly on this occasion, 
very much intoxicated, poked himself into the circle, walked up 
to the speaker with his hands in his pockets and a " quid " of 
tobacco in his mouth, looked at him steadily for a minute, and 
then said, " I guess you're a liar." The negro replied with 
something equally complimentary, and a loud altercation ensued 
between them. Two of the gentlemen in the circle stood forth 
at the same time to restore order, both beginning very mildly, 
but unfortunately suggesting different means of accomplishing 
the desired object. 

After a few words had passed between them, they became a 
little heated, matters quickly grew worse, and in two minutes 
they were applying terms to each other quite as equivocal as 
those used by the Chinaman and Negro. Mutual friends inter- 
fered, who immediately got up quarrels on their own account ; 
and, in a shorter time than I have taken to describe it, the whole 
party — who had but half an hour before been drinking mutual 
good healths, and making all sorts of complimentary speeches, 
were scattered into a dozen stormy groups on the deck. In the 
centre of each, stood two or three enraged disputants, with their 
fists almost in each other's faces ; while threats and curses were 
poured forth in all directions — "I'm an Englishman, I won't 
stand this." " I'm an American, I won't stand that !" — the 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 195 

English siding with the Negro, the Annericans with the China- 
man. In the mean time, this demon of discord had vanished, and 
we saw or heard no more of him or his lectures. For at least an 
hour the dire tumult lasted ; luckily, the better class of the pas- 
sengers of both countries, and the military officers on board, kept 
clear of the squabble, and finally their good offices lulled the 
tempest, and separated the contending parties. 

All the rest of the night was however passed in explanations 
and excitement. One very short man, of an immense rotundity 
of person, kept vehemently " guessing " that, if it had not been 
for some untimely interference of two of his friends, he would 
certainly have knocked down a broad-shouldered, good-humored 
Englishman, about six feet high, who was standing by with his 
hands in his pockets, chuckling with the most unfeigned delight. 

We landed early the next morning, and all the men of angry 
passions were scattered about in an hour, perhaps never to meet 
again. This was altogether a disgraceful affair ; the quarter, 
deck of a public packet-ship should never have been used for the 
purpose of attacking the institutions of a country to which so 
many of the passengers belonged, no matter what opinion, as to 
these institutions, people may entertain. I am convinced that, 
but for the certainty of being immediately amenable to English 
law, it would have been the occasion of great violence, if not loss 
of life. The affair was a good deal remarked upon in the Ame- 
rican papers subsequently, and, as far as it went, had an injuri- 
ous and exasperating effect. It never, to my knowledge, was 
noticed by the English press. I understand that strict orders 
have been issued by the steam-packet company to prevent the 
possible recurrence of such an affair. 

We had an excellent passage, and very good reason to be satis- 
fied with the ship, and all the arrangements on board ; but I 
must protest against the exorbitant price charged. In winter, the 
passage to America is forty pounds ; at that season it is a mono- 
poly, no other steamers cross, and the outward voyages of the 
" Liners " or sailing ships are very uncertain ; these mail boats 
are consequently well filled each time. The English govern- 
ment pay ninety-five thousand pounds a year for the carriage of 
the mails ; and, as the Great Western can convey passengers at 



196 HOCHELAGA; OR, 



four-fifths of the cost, without this assistance, the profits of the 
Mail Steam-packet company must be enormous. The Americans 
are of course highly indignant at these charges, and their govern- 
ment have already contracted for the building of steam-packets 
to run in opposition. I should be sorry to be of the least annoy- 
ance to the company by these remarks, for they deserve every 
credit for the speed and safety of their vessels, and there is no 
just cause of complaint against the accommodation, or the fare 
on board. At the same time I consider the charges an abuse, 
and take this means of pointing it out to the notice of that small 
portion of the public who may chance to see this book. 

I landed on English soil. I have no more to say about what I 
have seen or heard in my travels, but I have endless subjects for 
thought, and am fully impressed with the importance of the Future 
in the land which I have just left. I went thither in ignorance 
and indifference, but return with an undying interest, and with a 
knowledge — imperfect though it may be — forced upon me by the 
scenes through which I have passed. Were it not for the noble 
stake we still hold in the destinies of the New World, I confess that 
my impression would be undivided anxiety. The progress is 
astounding, the geometric ratio of increase of wealth and num- 
bers of this young people startles me by its enormous results. In 
a very few years they will exceed the population of the British 
islands; we cannot conceal from ourselves that in many of the most 
important points of national capabilities they beat us ; they are 
more energetic, 'more enterprising, less embarrassed with class 
interests, less burthened by the legacy of debt. This country, 
as a field for increase of power, is in every respect so infinitely 
beyond ours that comparison would be absurd. Their varieties 
of production, exuberant soil, extraordinary facilities of internal 
communication, their stimulating climate, the nature of their 
population, recruited constantly from the most stirring, though 
perhaps the least virtuous members of our community, their in- 
stitutions, acting with steam-engine power in driving them — all 
these qualifications combine to promise them a few years hence 
a degree of strength which may endanger the existing state of 
things in the world. They only wait for matured power, to apply 
the incendiary torch of republicanism to the nations of Europe. 



ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 197 

No one can deny that their specious promises of equality, backed 
by the example of the prosperity and independence of the masses 
on their own fertile soil, will have a most disquieting effect upon 
the minds of the lower classes in the old monarchies. Who can 
say but that they may lead to results so terrible that the French 
Revolution will be forgotten in the history which is to come ? 

A member of the House of Representatives of the United 
States, brought forward a motion, this year of 1846, to request 
that the President would take steps to relieve the suffering people 
of Ireland from the pressure of British tyranny, and bestow on 
them the inestimable benefit of American institutions. His 
motion, it is true, was not entertained, but no one rebuked him 
for it. It is impossible to doubt their intention of obtaining com- 
plete dominion over the North American Continent : in a State 
paper addressed by Mr. Buchanan, the American Secretary of 
State, to Mr. Pakenham, the English minister, in reference to 
Oregon, this paragraph appears — " To England a few years hence, 
in the natural course of events, it will be of but little importance." 
A large proportion of their press advocates this system of univer- 
sal spoliation. Kings and nobles, the law and constitutions of 
Europe, are perpetually held up to the people as objects of hatred 
and contempt. They sum up all the darkest feelings of the 
human mind, place them in a mean and feeble body, actuate it 
by low, selfish, and sensual motives, and when the picture is 
complete they place a crown or coronet upon the head. But too 
often, even the pulpit is made a means of spreading these ideas. 

With a more than Jesuitical perseverance, all this is instilled 
*nto the minds of their youth : their spelling-books, their histories, 
the press and the pulpit, confirm these impressions, and the young 
ALmerican is ready to go forth to the world to spread his political 
laith with fire and sword. It is impossible to give a full idea of 
the manner in which history — ay and the interpretation of the 
Bible itself — is perverted, for the sake of biassing the tone of 
feeling in the young. Not only do they indulge in^the most 
bombastic and extravagant praises of the civil and military 
achievements of their fellow-countrymen, but in the greatest 
depreciation of every other people. You will find this in every 
publication, from the halfpenny newspaper to the grave history. 



19S HOCHELAGA ; OR, 



Were an English boy to receive his first impressions from these 
sources, he could not think of his country without horror ; such 
records of tyranny, cowardice, treachery, and dishonesty, never 
were before accumulated against a single people. At first, these 
extravagances are rather amusing to an English traveller ; but 
afler a while, when they are kept continually in his ears and eyes, 
they become irritating and obnoxious ; for he cannot but see that 
they influence the American mind, and produce in the lower and 
governing class an undisguised hatred and contempt for England. 
The intelligent and wealthy people of the community will tell you 
that this sort of thing is mere flourish on the part of their country- 
men, that they do not mean what they say, that it is but a habit 
of speaking. But the habit of speaking becomes a habit of 
thinking, and thinking sooner or later, will become acting. 

For many years to come there is but little to dread from the 
open aggressive efforts of America : any long continued exertion 
or sacrifice is next to impossible, under their present constitution. 
The short but soiled records of their national existence, show 
them rushing into war against their kindred people, as soon as a 
favorable opportunity of injuring them appeared to arrive ; but, 
when they felt its harassing results, they rushed out of it again, 
without the grace of having gained a single point which they 
contended for, and having wretchedly failed in their attempts 
upon a remote, and at first almost unassisted colony — their capital 
taken, their commerce destroyed, and the stability of their Federal 
Union threatened. The stern lesson has had its effect for thirty 
years, but, unfortunately for the interests of humanity, it seems 
by this time well-nigh forgotten. 

Now we part, kind reader. May sorrow be a stranger to your 
blessed English home ! 

These pages have been an occupation and interest to me during 
many dark days. They were written when a shadow was upon 
me, in a lonely room, thousands of miles away. In brighter 
times, to come, they may be a source of pleasure to me, if I find 
that you were not wearied with my by-gone tales of Hochelaga, or 
imperfect sketch of England in the New World. 



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